Old issue rears ugly head in Sagesse's FIBA WASL opener
GHAZIR (Lebanon) - It's an old problem Sagesse hope to address sooner.
GHAZIR (Lebanon) - Sagesse head coach Jad El Hajj no longer took a moment to wonder when asked about the biggest problem behind their crushing FIBA WASL debut on Wednesday night.
“We have this problem. We have to solve it”
"It's clear. Second chance points," the veteran mentor quickly answered during the postgame press conference of their 86-74 defeat at the Ghazir Club Stadium.
Although the stat sheet shows that the rebounding battle went close, 46-44 in favor of the visiting team, Gorgan hauled down 20 offensive boards and scored 23 points off second chances.
In comparison, Sagesse had 17 offensive boards and scored just 15 second-chance points.
"They got 20 offensive rebounds, which was really big in the game, and they scored 23 points from it," lamented Hajj. "Those were points we could have controlled."
Hajj admitted that it has really been a problem of his team, and it recurred at the worst time possible—in their first-ever game in the FIBA WASL-West Asia League.
It was actually evident early on, and a clear example of that issue was when Arsalan Kazemi tipped in a miss and helped bring Gorgan to an 18-8 start into the game, setting the tone for the rout.
Kazemi, no doubt, outhustled them as he finished with 8 points and 18 rebounds, which was two shy of the league record, which he himself actually set back in the inaugurals.
"We have to control this. We have this problem. We have to solve it. We're always suffering from second chance points," he said. "This was really big today."
Still, it's only the first game, and Hajj believes that they will only get better from here.
"Hopefully, in the future, we can avoid what happened today," he said. "One more time, we have upcoming games; we have to learn from today; we have to work a lot; we have to put in more effort."
"[But] no problem, it's the first game; we're going to learn from it," furthered Hajj. "And hopefully, soon, we'll be better and start winning games."
FIBA