It was yet almost a decisive match in the playoff race. Facing Saint-Etienne, the Antibes team (ranked eighth before the game) had the chance to catch up to the Stéphanois at seventh place in the Pro B standings. However, things did not go as planned. It wasn’t that their opponents played a perfect game (although they might have), but rather the Azuréens shot themselves in the foot. “We started well but lost two players to injuries (Kennedy and Horner). Saint-Etienne came back and we lost our momentum. Every time there’s an issue, we struggle to get back on track. It happened again tonight,” observed coach Savo Vucevic, resignedly.
Down 5 to 3 at the outset, Antibes woke up and delivered a 7-0 run to their visitors, led by Mollinari and Doreau. The defense was strong, and the Stéphanois struggled to find the basket. John McCord’s team pulled ahead 18 to 9, only to be caught by the end of the first quarter after a dunk by Guillaume Pons and good management of the last possession by Elio Sadiku. It was 18 to 13 after ten minutes of play.
Horner threw an alley-oop to Kennedy, and the greens struggled against the physical presence of the whites. By the fifteenth minute, Saint-Etienne was on the ropes. Antibes led 30 to 20. However, the locals managed to catch up. Whether it was overconfidence or a lapse in concentration, it was unclear. Nevertheless, by halftime, the Côte d’Azur squad held only a slim one-point lead, 37-36, challenged by a Ligerian team gradually finding its form.
Antibes Quite Pale
In the third period, Saint-Etienne quickly took control of the game and never let go. Gary Staelens was particularly harmful for the defense of Antibes. The shooting guard was involved in all the right moves, along with his teammate Régis Aubry (the top two scorers of the game with 16 and 13 points). At Antibes, they struggled. Damir Karaibrahimovic tied the game at 50 all by the 28th minute, but the team was already sinking. “We fell back into our old ways. We left too much space on defense, and our shots didn’t go in. It’s another disappointment,” commented Julien Doreau, a former Stéphanois, somewhat disheartened after the game. The OAJLP team fell apart and lost all precision. Nothing went in, as was evident from their best player John McCord’s performance (10 points on 2/12 shooting), who tried in vain to rally his team several times without success. The Antibes players were far too weak to pose a threat to the skilled Saint-Etienne team (55% shooting accuracy). With a good management by their point guard Terry Williams at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Fabien Romeyer’s men could manage the end of the match, which they won 61 to 74.
“There’s nothing to say, but I regret that we weren’t at full strength,” said Savo Vucevic. In addition to the two injured during the game, Miloud Doubal was still unavailable. “On the other hand, I do not accept this defeat. We can lose games but not like this. We didn’t show what we are capable of.”
They will need to do so soon. Next weekend, Antibes travels to Poitiers, third in the standings, before hosting Chorale de Roanne on March 17th in the French Cup. However, the cup is another story and “not our priority,” concluded the coach. That says it all.
