Belfast Blazers at Aquinas
by Kyle Dumas
-Wednesday October 14th
The 8-mile journey between the universities of North Carolina and Duke along U.S. Highway 15-50, famously recognized as Tobacco Road, is arguably the best road-trip in basketball. An unparalleled combination of close proximity, rich history and consistent excellence places this rivalry amongst the most anticipated in any sport. However, Tobacco Road might soon face stiff competition for road-trip supremacy from an unlikely source: a discrete 300-yard long paved lane connecting St. Joseph's secondary school and Thomas Aquinas grammar school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The first installment of this soon-to-be epic showdown came Wednesday when the Belfast Blazers of St. Joseph's and Orangefield made the short stroll to meet my upstart Aquinas squad (and by "my upstart Aquinas squad" I mean this was the first time I met most of these kids and a select few of them will eventually be chosen to partner with kids from Grosvenor Grammar School for a cross-community team coached by Ben and I, but I digress) on our home court. Evoking shades of so many of those classic ACC battles, momentum would sway back and forth repeatedly throughout the game with the ultimate result hanging tantalizingly in the balance until the very final seconds ticked away.
In the immediate aftermath of the opening tip, many of the Blazers players seemed briefly intimidated by their more experienced, favored opponents. Whereas most of the Aquinas players have been playing organized team basketball since a relatively young age, a majority of the lads from St. Josephs and Orangefield seriously picked up the sport only in the past few years as a result of Full Court Peace's cross-community team-building initiatives. As a result, the fast-breaking, quick-triggered Aquinas team jumped out to a small early lead. However, Aquinas seemed overly comfortable with its position. When they failed to extend the gap, the Blazers quickly realized that the previous year's worth of preparation (including numerous practices, games and a team trip to the United States) under veteran coaches Colin Powers, T.J. Reynolds, and Dave Tierney had given them the skills and confidence to truly contend for victory. Employing an array of solid screens on offense, coupled with a defensive attack characterized by swift steals and determined rebounding, the Blazers fought back to nearly even as the first quarter ended. Freshly motivated (and newly educated by an impromptu mid-half introduction of motion-offensive principles by Ben and I), Aquinas started the second quarter with a fury of easy baskets, eventually building the largest lead of the game. Still the Blazers refused to concede, taking advantage of each Aquinas turnover and relying on a physical brand of play to claw their way back into the game. As the first half drew to a close, it was still anybody's game.
Any veteran basketball player or coach has witnessed the transformation that can take place when a clear favorite allows a dangerous underdog to hang around just a little too long over the course of a game. In certain cases, the favored team's collective attitude tends to follow a trajectory strikingly similar to Will Farrell's movie career. At first, things come easy and everyone expects you to build on past success. Of course "Anchorman" followed "Old School." Inevitably, however, many dominant teams enter a comfort zone where future success is taken for granted. Now the favorites tend to maintain rather than excel, allowing their competition back into the fray (think "Talladega Nights"). At this point, pressure increases and mistakes start to become evident, not unlike segments of "Blades of Glory" and most of "Stranger than Fiction." Finally, in extreme cases, a complete failure to deliver occurs and the previously dominant team experiences a "Semi-pro"/"Land of the Lost"-style defeat. Standing at the center of the Aquinas huddle I feared that that this familiar path might be the team's fate as one of the players proposed, "Let's actually play this half, guys."
Unsurprisingly, turnovers continued to plague an increasingly uptight Aquinas team throughout the second half while the Blazers played an unselfish, free-wheeling game. The Coach Powers-led squad had captured the lead by the end of the third quarter and with less than 30 seconds remaining continued to hold tight to a one-point advantage. Purposefully (and largely motivated by the absence of a shot-clock), Aquinas fouled one of the Blazers more underwhelming free-throw shooters with less than ten seconds on the clock hoping that a miss would lead to quick transition for the winning bucket. The miss came as expected, but the necessary defensive rebound did not as an aware Blazer forward slid into the lane and grabbed the match-sealing offensive board. It was an appropriate deciding play considering the perseverance exhibited by the Blazers all afternoon. The prelude to Belfast's newest potential rivalry had been satisfactorily penned...
...Alright, so maybe the St. Joe's/Orangefield Blazers versus one half of a potential Aquinas/Grosvenor team isn't exactly Tar Heels versus Blue Devils. For instance, most of the Aquinas team showed up at halftime, the "underdog" Blazers team was actually mostly older than the Aquinas guys, and Aquinas co-coach Ben Honan doubled as the singular referee in his first ever game. However, a few important implications arise from our informal preseason scrimmage. While rivalry and competition are important to growing youth basketball here in Belfast, these elements are only stepping towards an ultimate goal of creating a close-knit basketball community in Northern Ireland that can supersede community differences. When working together to win as a team becomes more important than the religious or political beliefs of those you play with or compete against, then sport has made a tangible difference. On Wednesday, both Protestants and Catholics of varied social class simply played basketball. It wasn't the first time and certainly won't be the last. Yes, I would agree that our little match might not mean a whole lot on the surface but if it serves as motivation for even a bit of competition and bonding involving four very unique schools in Belfast then Tobacco Road it is.
-Wednesday October 14th
The 8-mile journey between the universities of North Carolina and Duke along U.S. Highway 15-50, famously recognized as Tobacco Road, is arguably the best road-trip in basketball. An unparalleled combination of close proximity, rich history and consistent excellence places this rivalry amongst the most anticipated in any sport. However, Tobacco Road might soon face stiff competition for road-trip supremacy from an unlikely source: a discrete 300-yard long paved lane connecting St. Joseph's secondary school and Thomas Aquinas grammar school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The first installment of this soon-to-be epic showdown came Wednesday when the Belfast Blazers of St. Joseph's and Orangefield made the short stroll to meet my upstart Aquinas squad (and by "my upstart Aquinas squad" I mean this was the first time I met most of these kids and a select few of them will eventually be chosen to partner with kids from Grosvenor Grammar School for a cross-community team coached by Ben and I, but I digress) on our home court. Evoking shades of so many of those classic ACC battles, momentum would sway back and forth repeatedly throughout the game with the ultimate result hanging tantalizingly in the balance until the very final seconds ticked away.
In the immediate aftermath of the opening tip, many of the Blazers players seemed briefly intimidated by their more experienced, favored opponents. Whereas most of the Aquinas players have been playing organized team basketball since a relatively young age, a majority of the lads from St. Josephs and Orangefield seriously picked up the sport only in the past few years as a result of Full Court Peace's cross-community team-building initiatives. As a result, the fast-breaking, quick-triggered Aquinas team jumped out to a small early lead. However, Aquinas seemed overly comfortable with its position. When they failed to extend the gap, the Blazers quickly realized that the previous year's worth of preparation (including numerous practices, games and a team trip to the United States) under veteran coaches Colin Powers, T.J. Reynolds, and Dave Tierney had given them the skills and confidence to truly contend for victory. Employing an array of solid screens on offense, coupled with a defensive attack characterized by swift steals and determined rebounding, the Blazers fought back to nearly even as the first quarter ended. Freshly motivated (and newly educated by an impromptu mid-half introduction of motion-offensive principles by Ben and I), Aquinas started the second quarter with a fury of easy baskets, eventually building the largest lead of the game. Still the Blazers refused to concede, taking advantage of each Aquinas turnover and relying on a physical brand of play to claw their way back into the game. As the first half drew to a close, it was still anybody's game.
Any veteran basketball player or coach has witnessed the transformation that can take place when a clear favorite allows a dangerous underdog to hang around just a little too long over the course of a game. In certain cases, the favored team's collective attitude tends to follow a trajectory strikingly similar to Will Farrell's movie career. At first, things come easy and everyone expects you to build on past success. Of course "Anchorman" followed "Old School." Inevitably, however, many dominant teams enter a comfort zone where future success is taken for granted. Now the favorites tend to maintain rather than excel, allowing their competition back into the fray (think "Talladega Nights"). At this point, pressure increases and mistakes start to become evident, not unlike segments of "Blades of Glory" and most of "Stranger than Fiction." Finally, in extreme cases, a complete failure to deliver occurs and the previously dominant team experiences a "Semi-pro"/"Land of the Lost"-style defeat. Standing at the center of the Aquinas huddle I feared that that this familiar path might be the team's fate as one of the players proposed, "Let's actually play this half, guys."
Unsurprisingly, turnovers continued to plague an increasingly uptight Aquinas team throughout the second half while the Blazers played an unselfish, free-wheeling game. The Coach Powers-led squad had captured the lead by the end of the third quarter and with less than 30 seconds remaining continued to hold tight to a one-point advantage. Purposefully (and largely motivated by the absence of a shot-clock), Aquinas fouled one of the Blazers more underwhelming free-throw shooters with less than ten seconds on the clock hoping that a miss would lead to quick transition for the winning bucket. The miss came as expected, but the necessary defensive rebound did not as an aware Blazer forward slid into the lane and grabbed the match-sealing offensive board. It was an appropriate deciding play considering the perseverance exhibited by the Blazers all afternoon. The prelude to Belfast's newest potential rivalry had been satisfactorily penned...
...Alright, so maybe the St. Joe's/Orangefield Blazers versus one half of a potential Aquinas/Grosvenor team isn't exactly Tar Heels versus Blue Devils. For instance, most of the Aquinas team showed up at halftime, the "underdog" Blazers team was actually mostly older than the Aquinas guys, and Aquinas co-coach Ben Honan doubled as the singular referee in his first ever game. However, a few important implications arise from our informal preseason scrimmage. While rivalry and competition are important to growing youth basketball here in Belfast, these elements are only stepping towards an ultimate goal of creating a close-knit basketball community in Northern Ireland that can supersede community differences. When working together to win as a team becomes more important than the religious or political beliefs of those you play with or compete against, then sport has made a tangible difference. On Wednesday, both Protestants and Catholics of varied social class simply played basketball. It wasn't the first time and certainly won't be the last. Yes, I would agree that our little match might not mean a whole lot on the surface but if it serves as motivation for even a bit of competition and bonding involving four very unique schools in Belfast then Tobacco Road it is.
Labels: Basketball, Belfast, october
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