Worcester Wolves 87-67 Big Sky Basketball

Friday 22nd September 2023

By Colin Taylor

Worcester Wolves finalised preparations for their upcoming National Basketball League campaign with a comfortable victory over Big Sky Basketball at the University of Worcester Arena on Friday.

After setting aside a slow start, Wolves rolled to a 48-26 half-time lead, allowing coach Dean Blake to spread minutes amongst the many new faces in his squad as they eased to an 87-67 victory.

Nearly three minutes had elapsed before returning co-captain Jacob Dearman set the scoreboard ticking with a three-point play after intercepting the ball at midcourt.

Daniel Molloy immediately impressed when joining the action in the last minute of the opening quarter to set up baskets for fellow debutants James Harrop and Emmanuel Yeboah, giving Wolves a 15-12 edge.

Dearman slotted in a further seven first-half points before handing over point guard duties to Peter Palmer. Palmer aided a burst of inside scoring as well as floating home one of a half-dozen pre-interval three-pointers for the hosts.

Second-year man Aryan Davoodi drove powerfully to the hoop to maintain the scoring momentum after the break. Dearman produced his fourth steal of the night and Yeboah continued to make his presence felt as Worcester sealed the win.

Yeboah and Dearman led the scoring with 19 and 16 points respectively. Palmer with 11 points and Harrop with 10 rounded out the double-digit scorers.

“It might sound a little silly but I wasn’t really interested in the score so much,” said Blake. ”It was more about embedding habits that we’ve been working on for the last three or four weeks and we saw some of that today.”   

Wolves will commence their regular-season fixtures next Saturday 30 September (7.30pm) when they welcome Northants Titans to the University of Worcester Arena.

“I’ve been stressing to the players that we need to come out ready to compete for the full forty minutes. If we do that we’ll give ourselves a good chance to win,” added Blake.