West Brom Basketball overcome handicap to progress

The Rosebowl pits every team in the West Midlands Basketball League against one another, involving all divisions. Teams are handed a handicap score dependant on their league positioning.

This resulted in a lop-sided scoreline to open proceedings for West Brom, having to battle back from 0-74 as the game got underway.

As expected, the Black Country side opened with a full-court pressing defense and that tactic soon began to pay dividends too, with Stafford managing just 10 points in the opening quarter whilst West Brom quickly chipped away at the deficit with 31 points of their own.

That dominant opening period was then built upon, as Tim Rudge's side poured in a season-high 41 points in the second quarter whilst holding the visitors to just nine points - leaving the half-time score 72-93.

West Brom kicked off the second half in a similar fashion, cashing in from long-range to help further decrease Stafford's dwindling handicap advantage, finding themselves within just a single point as period came to a close.

The Black Country side overtook that difference in the opening minutes of the final quarter, and refused to relinquish their lead as they cruised to an eventual 16-point win behind Kwame Bataille's 41 point haul.

Point guard, Sam Rudge was delighted with the victory - especially having fought to overcome one of the largest handicaps in the competition.

"I think there were some really good performances from everyone today - especially from Kwame [Bataille] and Ez [Little]. But the big thing for me was the all-round effort on defense." he said.

"We really pushed our defense up the court today and capitalised when we converted the opposition turnovers, which was a big part of our game plan.

"To score 72 points in the first half to be within 20 points after seeing the handicap we were facing was a great effort.

"As I said, Ez had a great all-round game, and that was good to see. But I'd also point towards the performances of Kashe [Evans] and Mudie [Kapfumvuti] too - they both put in huge shifts which doesn't always show on the stat sheet."

West Brom A host Redditch Regents next as they head back into their regular season commitments - the visitors are without a win this season.