Bad weekend for Cork Super League basketball clubs

It certainly was a bleak weekend for Cork basketball with the two so-called superpowers Energywise Ireland Neptune and UCC Demons suffering defeats that all but ended their Super League playoff hopes.

In the case of Neptune, their home loss 121-114 to St Vincent’s certainly brought home a few home truths in what has been a disastrous season.

Since the start of the season, Neptune parted with two coaches, Keith Daly and Ciaran McKivney, and now Paul O’Brien and his assistant Darren Geaney were given the job to pick up the pieces.

For a club like Neptune to be in a relegation battle is not good for Cork or Irish basketball but this is the second time in this position in the last 10 years.

The last occasion, under coach Paul Kelleher, their blushes were saved when a team withdrew from the Super League, but they might not be so fortunate at the end of this campaign if results do not go their way.

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Over the years, I have got to know many decent people at this club and the work they do for the community is off the charts. 

They deserve to be competing at the top tier of Irish basketball with a state-of-the-art stadium.

When Neptune were dominating Irish basketball at U18 and U20 levels they lost a number of players to colleges in the States as for some strange reason, they were told the grass is greener on the other side.

I have never seen a player return to this country from college ball in the States with the exception of CJ Fulton of Belfast and Colin O’Reilly, who were better players after experiencing the bright lights.

Let’s hope that results go Neptune’s way, and they rebuild for next season.

Their so-called noisy neighbours, UCC Demons, are also having a dreadful season and last week’s double loss against Ballincollig and Limerick Celtics all but ended their play-off hopes and also keeps them in relegation trouble.

Without going over Demons' season to date, the bottom line is they have imploded on too many occasions in this campaign.

Granted American Tamyrik Fields went off injured with eight minutes remaining but in truth, he had only contributed nine points and some of his shooting and defending was suspect.

The Ballincollig defeat was very frustrating as they dominated the cup champions for more than three quarters of the game and had a 12-point lead with six minutes remaining.

Not surprisingly, turnovers coupled with silly shooting options and the result was Ballincollig finished strong to run out eight-point winners.

There were certainly many talking points after that loss but the fans were optimistic that a win against Limerick Celtics would set them up nicely for a play-off spot, with games against Sligo All Stars and St Vincent’s looming.

In a repeat of the Ballincollig loss, they basically lost the plot coming down the stretch. How Demons allowed their Limerick opponents shoot unchallenged three-pointers in the closing minutes beggars belief.

To round off a poor weekend Fr Mathew’s loss at home to Gurranabraher Credit Union Brunell sealed their fate in the Women’s Super League and they will be competing in Division 1 next season.

They've lost all 16 games in the campaign so far. To be fair, Mathew’s are a big club and with some restructuring have the ability to bounce back.