Lima, left, and Webb III, in a UCAM attack that ended in a basket on Sunday. /
The success of UCAM is less ephemeral and more solid with each passing day, and the Copa del Rey begins to appear in the conversations
The best start in the club’s history in the Endesa League has a new record since last Sunday. With its agonizing victory against Baskonia, UCAM won five games for the first time in the first seven days of the top competition.
A success that has him as third place and with overwhelming numbers: it is the highest scoring team –87.4 points per game– with its star, Taylor, as the leader in the individual field –18.4–; it is third in percentage of success in triples –39.2% – and fifth in two-point shots –54.3% -, and also third in stolen balls per game –8.1–. These are some of the keys to the success of one of the fashion teams in the Endesa League.
1. Workforce continuity
In today’s basketball it is almost a chimera to find teams that maintain the block of players from one year or another. When the season has turned out good, they revalue themselves and fly to more tempting destinations. When not, the club has to try other formulas. This season, ten players from the previous one continue and, with the same coach, this represents a higher cooking point than the rest of the teams still under construction.
The strength resides in a continuist bloc, without repeated cards and with guaranteed players in all positions
Thus, UCAM has a recognizable identity that goes through a very intense defense – the team with the most fouls in the league – and an attack that has its first and second options clear. This definition of roles is decisive for a team to know what it is playing. Thus, he gains personality to go out without fear to fields like those of Barcelona or Valencia, tie games on the less showy days – case of the Bilbao visit – or give up releasing others like Baskonia.
2. Closet bottom
Sito Alonso has guaranteed players in all positions and with different cards. At point guard, Taylor sets speed and points while Bellas reads leads and runs static. McFadden and Davis perfectly combine gunpowder and legs, Rojas has found in Czerapowicz the ‘3’ high of guarantees that he did not have at his side, Radovic is the best example of commitment giving gallons to a diamond like Webb III, and Lima is one one of the best defensive interiors in the competition, while Cate is more attacking.
The team wins and puts on a show; its 87.4 points per game guarantee fans fun and joy
Malmanis and Vasileiadis, two players much more important than it may seem, as it is not always easy to accept a residual role and be prepared to assume it.
3. Sito Alonso and his ideas
Beyond the sensations, the results also help you to believe in yourself. The best years of UCAM Murcia CB had always been accompanied by a very physical defense and a remarkable rebounding ability.
But not from an attack like the current one. Sito Alonso had the personal challenge of making his love for a happy and dynamic game triumph in a non-leading team and, for the moment, the numbers prove him right. Nobody scores more points than their team.
4. A passionate hobby
The summer of 2020 returned the illusion to Murcia after a few seasons suffering for a goal that seemed like that of the past, that of saving the category. Radovic and Lima returned to meet again with Rojas, and re-form the most identifiable trio of players in recent history.
The countless waves of the pandemic gave a season of empty stands, but the return has been taken with enthusiasm and a stand that identifies with his team always gives a plus like the one on Sunday against Baskonia, a match in which he behaved like a sixth player to help beat.
5. You also live from illusion
If there is a number in UCAM to look at at the moment, it is in that of your ‘basket-average’. The logic of budgets suggests that the third position you occupy right now, closest or farthest, will have an expiration date. But in this first round, the statistic that tips the balance to one side or the other in draws is the points for or against. And right now, Sito Alonso’s team has scored 55 more points than it has received, also being the third best in the league in this regard. Behind them, only two teams have close numbers: with +47 are Joventut -one victory less- and Breogán -two less and the next rival-, and the next team with a more comfortable difference is Gran Canaria, also with five victories , but only +14.
A ‘basket-average’ that is but another factor that places UCAM, at the moment, in a privileged position for accessing a Copa del Rey in which it was only in its 1996 edition, and as host.
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