Maybe coach Francis Williams had a point. Or even 39.
But St Augustine didn’t do much to prove him wrong losing heavily to Cave Hill Blackbirds in a basketball game Saturday.
Daniel Lovell led four players in double digits with 14 points and Ian Alexander had seven of his 13 in the second quarter as defending basketball champs Cave Hill Blackbirds routed St Augustine 74-35 in their UWI Games opener at the Barbados Community College last Saturday.
It came on the heels of Williams’ recent rant, as the Lakers head coach strongly opposed the campus’ decision to withhold the UWI-based players from Premier League competition, having questioned the level of the competition.
The visitors managed a mere two first-quarter points and ten in total over the game’s first 20 minutes, while Cave Hill’s man-to-man defence looked as oppressive as any ever played.
Both teams actually started slowly, as the contest’s first two points didn’t come until the 6:27 mark on Doneal Thomas’ layup.
But Jamar King quickly brought the standing-room only crowd to their feet with a thunderous one-handed dunk over a hapless Hummingbird guard in transition.
Lovell followed suit with a pair of his own throw-downs in the second period, before Alexander had seven points of a 21-0 run that put the Blackbirds ahead 41-10 at the half.
Alexander returned to score six of the first eight points of the third quarter, while Cave Hill stretched their lead to 40, as St Augustine’s lone resistance came via a pair of jumpers from Dale Copeland.
The Hummingbird guard was the lone St Augustine player in double digits with 13 points, while King and Stefan Clarke added ten apiece for Cave Hill.
Earlier, national point guard Sadé Clarke had six of her 20 points during a decisive 13-3 fourth-quarter run to lead the Blackbirds women to a tense 61-56 victory over their St Augustine counterparts.
That brief flurry came just seconds after the Hummingbirds threatened to take the lead following Tova Lin Bartholomew’s lay-up early in the fourth that brought St Augustine within one (41-40).
Cave Hill scored seven unanswered points in response, before Clarke added a running hook, a lay-up and a short jumper to stretch the lead to 54-43.
Burke assisted Clarke with 12 points, while Bartholomew led the visitors, and all scorers, with 21 points.
