How to lose a close game

November 13, 2007 by Christophe 

I talked already about the value of a coach in the playing style of a team and their success. And I talked also already about the fact that a ref can have a huge influence on a game. But tonight was the best example that also a coach can lose a game.

In the ULEB Cup game between Deutsche Bank Skyliners and Anwil Wloclawek, the score was close in the last seconds. Frankfurt had a time out and their head coach Murat Didin was explaining what to do with the ball in the last 5 seconds of the game.

However, Didin must have missed to tell his players who should be on the court after the timeout. Because when the game started again, Frankfurt had 6 guys on the court. And the logical conclusion of this is a technical foul. The Polish team used this extraordinary stupid move by Frankfurt, scored both FTs and comes back to Poland with their first win.

[UPDATE] I just saw the official press release of Frankfurt in relation with this game.  And I was shocked by the words Murat Didin said after the game. Translated into English, the coach said:

This was not alone Jimmie’s fault (BallinEurope: Jimmie Hunt was supposed to stay on the bench), but also mine. I should have seen this. This was a highlight error, which may happen once a season - if not less frequent.

Wow, how can you say that this is an error that can happen maybe once a season. I mean, if you are a professional coach, you don’t have the right to lose a game like this, even if it was the player that came to the court and should have been on the bench. Those words may have been taken out of their context, but they have been published officially by the team. And this quote does not put a very good light on Murat Didin.

Comments

4 Responses to “How to lose a close game”

  1. Arkadios on November 13th, 2007 11:41 pm

    How can a coach named Murat Didin be considered professional?

  2. elaj on November 14th, 2007 10:04 pm

    Once I saw 6 players on court (accidently) and team was given a tehnical, but ofcourse this happened in youth league game. :)

  3. Defining moments for European Basketball on December 31st, 2007 10:57 am

    [...] I whish I saw that game - headline: "How to lose a close game" [...]

  4. How to win in 2 seconds: put 6 guys on the floor! : Ball in Europe - Basketball Blog on March 31st, 2008 11:47 am

    [...] we talked already about how to win a game in 0.2 seconds or how to lose it because of stupidity, we have got this incredible video of the third German [...]

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!