Irish Basketball has fallen some way from the halcyon days of the eighties, when legendary figures such as Jesper McElroy, Terry Strickland and Mario Elie all tread the boards on the Irish scene, but it is alive and kicking within Irish Universities as UCC, UL, DCU and UCD are all going strong in the Nivea for Men Superleague.
The four colleges fill fou of the top five league spots and this weekend is a particularly big one for the UL Eagles. They face two games on successive nights; a trip to Dublin Inter on Friday, where victory will be expected, and a home tie against the table-topping UCC Demons this Saturday night.
This will be the second time that these two sides have met this year and the UL side will certainly be keen to turn the tables on the result last October. On that occasion they allowed UCC out to an early 32-15 lead and despite dominating the last three quarters of the game, they narrowly failed to reel in the Cork side. Robert Taylor’s 22 points wasn’t quite enough as they ran out 76-78 losers, the only game that either side have lost all year.
At the time of writing Paddy Powers have only issued guide prices on the game but they are expected to make UL the 4/5 favourites, while offering UCC at even money. Even at that short a price, and having played a game the night before, this could be a good time to have a patriotic punt on the local club. Since that narrow defeat to UCC, the Eagles are conceding less than 60 points per game on the back of some incredible defensive play. Taylor has been at the forefront of the club’s scoring while Irish International Jason Killeen has been dominant at centre, but he’ll face a huge battle against the UCC American Kenton Walker. Walker replaced Delwan Graham after four games and in his four starts since joining the Demons, he’s put up 43 rebounds, 6 blocks and 89 points. The battle at centre will be critical to the outcome of this game, but if Killeen can even come close to breaking even with Walker, then the UL backcourt pairing of Taylor and Scott Kinevane should be able to build healthy totals and get the home side over the line.
Powers pricing is yet to be confirmed, but anything better than 8/11 about a home win or any handicap of three points or less would be worth keeping on side, while the total points here could be quite low. If Powers go up with anything around 143 or 144, it would be well worth betting low.
