Neptune and UCC Demons need to find a way to win or league ambitions will be over

It's hard to believe five games into the season that a club with the history and record of Neptune has zero wins from five games in the Men’s Super League.

Neptune, who relieved coach Keith Daly of his duties on Wednesday night and will have Paul O'Brien and Ronan O'Sullivan in charge against Sligo tomorrow night, are not standing alone as a team in crisis. Their neighbours and greatest rivals UCC Demons are at 1-4 as the alarm bells are certainly ringing in both camps.

Neptune a club steeped in tradition, put in a much-improved show on Bank Holiday Monday before eventually losing out to Limerick Celtics 75-73.

To be fair, Neptune’s best player Cian Heaphy missed the game with injury, but right now they are are badly in need of confidence and a win.

It will be back to the Neptune stadium tomorrow when Energywise Ireland Neptune host Sligo All Stars in a must-win game before their cup clash away to Tralee Warriors.

UCC Demons, the reigning champions, have a very interesting fortnight that begins on Sunday when they face leaders Belfast Star at the Mardyke Arena. A defeat would mean they would travel to Limerick Celtics in the National Cup on the back of five consecutive losses.

So where has it gone wrong for the champions?

In my book Demons' Irish players should look in the mirror as they have dropped a few levels from what we witnessed over the last three years.

There is little doubt recruiting good professionals is the number one priority and for me, Demons have got it totally wrong in that department.

Sacking Zach Hinton and replacing him with Jarvis Doles was not the right decision as when Doles played with Tralee Warriors two years ago, he didn’t set the league alight. Doles is a bad fit because Demons have no inside presence with their offence plays consisting of pick-and-rolls coupled with hand-offs.

At this level of basketball that plan goes out the window and the reason Demons are struggling is they are not scoring. Worse still, they are not defending.

Demons' second American Shariff Black came from the Australian league with a good record but from the first time I saw him in a Demons jersey his general play failed to impress me.

Just looking at Black’s scoring stats in the weekend defeats to Killester and UCD Marian. In the Killester game, he had two points at half-time and in the UCD loss, he contributed six points in 20 minutes of basketball.

Now this is a player who probably sees more of the ball than any of his teammates but the bottom line he is not a genuine point guard and certainly not a prolific scorer.

Belfast Star, a quality team with a top coach in Adrian Fulton, will be hard to beat.

Demons will do well on present form to avoid a drubbing at the Mardyke.

No such problems for Ballincollig as they had a good Bank Holiday weekend with impressive wins at home to UCD Marian and an away win to Killester on Monday.

Speaking to player-coach Ciaran O’Sullivan before the season began, he made the point that recruiting good professionals was crucial for competing teams. His side are third in the Super League with a 3-2 record after bouncing back from losing their first two games.

The Ballincollig professional trio of Latavious Mitchell, Latrell Jossell and Josh Steel are possibly the best combination in the league.

In the last three games, Ballincollig have shown great form and the visit of Eanna tomorrow to the MTU should be a wonderful spectacle.

FORMIDABLE

Eanna are second in the table and with Cork-born Sean Jenkins in their squad, they're a formidable unit.

Jenkins is a magnificent talent and he contributed 21 points in their win over Sligo All Stars on Monday.

Americans Mikah Blackwell and Jalen McKee-Marion are useful with Bosmans Kristijan Andabaka and Stefan Desnica a powerful scoring duo.

A win for Ballincollig would be a huge boost to their title aspirations and this game is surely going to be intense from start to finish.