MD Cup: ISB basketball team thrash SGS

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL BRUNEI (ISB) powered their way past St George's School (SGS) 84-47 in the 2009 MD Cup basketball tournament yesterday at the Brunei Basketball Association (BBA) court in Batu Bersurat.

ISB started the game off applying full court pressure and managed to gain a 16-point lead before SGS got their first basket of the game after five minutes.

ISB were cutting to the basket and scoring easy points from inside the paint because of their physical advantage. SGS had no solution to ISB centre, Nicholas Ho, who had a game high 35 points, as he helped clean the boards and scored easily from under the basket.

ISB were the better side and they were going after every loose ball and were hauling down rebounds both on the offensive and defensive ends of the court.

With ISB leading 22-10 in the first half with seven minutes to play, SGS went on an 11-2 run to help cut the deficit to six at 20-26 with three minutes to play in the period.

Hawaii Yee, who led SGS with 27 points, led the charge as he scored all of the points in the run including back to back three pointers.

But ISB quickly struck back taking it up a notch to end the half leading 37-24.

That was as close as it got as in the second half ISB began to run away with the game outscoring their opponents 47-23 as SGS had nothing going on offence to bring themselves closer to their rivals.

ISB head coach Tladi Small said: "We started out with the full court press to put pressure on them and we realised they couldn't break the press which allowed us to extend our lead.

"The game plan was to move the ball around and score so that we can enjoy ourselves after we get a big lead. This can be considered a tune up game but I know that the upcoming matches are going to get harder," added Small, who has been coaching the ISB basketball team for four years.

To prepare for the tournament, the ISB basketball team competed in the Secondary Schools Basketball League held by Jerudong International School where they became eventual champions and were unbeaten for the whole competition.

The first game of the day saw Chung Hwa Middle School Bandar hand Meragang Sixth Form Centre their second consecutive defeat a 77-49 loss, while the third game of the day saw Hosts Maktab Duli 'A' notch up their second straight win defeating St Andrew's School 53-44.

Today's games will see Katok Sixth Form Centre take on Science College at 9.30am. The second game of the day will see Laksamana College of Business go up against ISB at 2pm followed by the final game of the day which will see Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien College take on Seri Mulia Sarjana School at 3pm.The Brunei Times