The Prague Post Online: Sports: USK stumbles at home

November 22nd, 2008

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USK stumbles at home

Bad calls, inconsistent play add up to loss vs. Sadská

By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 12th, 2007 issue

Minutes after the final whistle, Roderick Platt slumped alone on the USK Praha bench. The others, his equally dejected teammates, had shuffled with heads drooping into the locker room.

It would have been easy for any one of them — Roman Marko, Peter Rerko or the rest — to blame lousy officiating for their 76–73 home loss to lowly Sadská Dec. 7. The referees fingered Rerko for traveling while he soared over the key, passing the ball before his feet hit the floor, a call that led to points for the visitors.

And with nine seconds left in the game and USK down by two, Marko was charged with an even more suspect — and damaging — foul, as he and Sadská guard Michal Hubálek inadvertently collided while scrambling for a loose ball.

“This is the first time I’ve seen so much attention directed at the refs,” said USK coach Ken Scalabroni afterward.

Still, he refused to criticize the crew led by Vladimír Zelinka.

“The officials don’t shoot the ball three times in your face from beyond the three-point line,” he said.

That was left to Sadská’s ageless bomber, Denis Mujagič, who drained three long treys in the game’s final stages. The first seemed like a desperation heave as the buzzer sounded ending the third quarter. Platt had just squared the game, 52 all — quite an achievement after an ugly slapstick performance left USK nine points in the hole after the first 10 minutes of play — when Mujagič struck.

His next three-pointer came with the score knotted at 63 and less than five minutes remaining in the game. After Prague’s Lucious Wagner hit two free throws, Platt and Sadská’s Timothy Lyle traded jumpers.

So the visitors clung to a one-point margin as Mujagič worked to escape tight coverage, falling back along the foul lines next to the USK bench. Thirty feet from the rim, he fired again, dropping the final shot of his critical nine-point barrage.

Mujagič wound up with 21 points on the game. Lyle, the NBL’s third-leading scorer, tacked on 24 for the visitors. Platt (18), Rerko (17) and Wagner (11) led Prague’s offensive attack.

“We had to control their main players,” Scalabroni said. “We just didn’t do it.”

USK also failed to convert on five of their first six attempts from the line, seemed confused by Sadská’s backdoor cuts and constant picking, couldn’t wear down the visitors’ almost-geriatric starting lineup, lost focus after bad calls and sabotaged their own comeback with costly mental errors.

Despite all that, they almost pulled off a comeback. Platt elbowed past Lyle for a critical layup, vaulting Prague into the lead with 7:23 to go. Rerko pulled up in transition to drain a three-pointer, once again giving USK a lead, 63–60, a minute later. Even after Mujagič’s display of long-range ballistics, USK charged back once more. Wagner fed Lukáš Kotas to cut a four-point deficit in half with 10 seconds on the clock.

Then Marko collided with Hubálek, Wagner failed to control a rebound, a final, futile shot missed badly and time ran out.

“We played tonight in spurts — four or five good minutes, then our level of play would go down,” Scalabroni concluded, echoing a season-long complaint.

USK hopes to recover on the road, with visits to cellar-dwelling Ústí nad Labem Dec. 15 and Kolín five days later.

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com

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