SABA 2017 ended with the same old tale. India won placing themselves in the Asian Championship as the sole representative of the region. Sri Lanka – also ran. They won one out of the four games.
Preparation
Winning is the last check box of the process. You can never win without preparation and Sri Lanka had just four days of practice prior to the tournament, in total 20 hours.
India, the tournament winners organized a coaching camp of sixteen days from 1st of May – 17th of May with the participation of 33 players. Within the first seven days; that is on the 7th of May India finalized the 15-member squad who will participate in the tournament. From the 7th of May until the coaching camp ended they had ten days of back-to-back practice for the selected 15.
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Sri Lanka announced a 36-member national pool after senior nationals which ended in February. Since the announcement until May Sri Lanka had a two-month period to prepare themselves. The fact that the invitation to the tournament was received to Sri Lanka late was cited as the reason Sri Lanka did not have enough time to prepare as a 15-member squad. However, if Sri Lanka had started their practices with the 36-member pool in February it can be argued that Sri Lanka would have fared better.
ThePapare.com further learned that at least a couple of coaches had refused to take the position of mentoring this team due to the lack of preparation time. Prasanna Jayasinghe who took on the challenge speaking to ThePapare.com before departure also mentioned that the time Sri Lanka missed out in practicing will clearly make an impact on the result of the tournament.
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International media had identified Sri Lanka as one of the threats to India in achieving the five-peat at the tournament. India won the tournament with ten days of continuous practice. If only Sri Lanka had practiced and molded the raw talent into a winning combination the opinion of the international media would have been accurate.
Scoring Percentages
Field Goals – 36.7%
2 Pointers – 71.1%
3 Pointers – 26.5%
In total Sri Lanka opted for 289 field goals out which they made only 106. In the breakdown Sri Lanka has opted 187 two-pointers and made only 133 while opting for 102 three-pointers and converting only 27. The stats for the two-pointers is acceptable only if you can win a game of basketball with two pointers. Sri Lanka`s shooting outside the perimeter has been a disaster. It`s Charith Perera who has opted for most number of three pointers which is 30, and has converted only 11 out of them. His shooting outside the arc remains at a 36.7%. Even in the match against Nepal where Sri Lanka won; they managed to maintain a three-point percentage of 27%. That is 6 shots converted out of 22. The average of Sri Lanka attempting a three-pointer in a match is 94% but the average conversion rate is 22%.
Sri Lanka has scored 150 points in the paint. That is 70 shots out of 150 attempted with a percentage of 46.6%.
Rebounds and Steals
Defensive Rebounds – 115
Offensive Rebounds – 64
Steals Conceded – 33
Defensive rebounds are on the satisfactory line but not the offensive rebounds. In total Sri Lanka has etched 164 rebounds. From the 64 offensive rebounds they have grabbed, 51 points were on second chance. This number should have been better considering there were 09 six footers in the line-up. All the five players in the court got to contest for the rebound. It`s a golden egg that you cannot drop.
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It`s Sudesh Ahamed has etched the most number of rebounds, 34 and following him is Gayan De Croos with 33 rebounds. Sri Lanka has conceded 33 steals in total while the most number of steals coming in the match against Maldives which is 11. No wonder Sri Lanka was trailing the game 99% of the time.
Starting five
Skipper Roshan Fernando started the game in all the 04 matches playing for 41.70mins and scoring only 15 points for the entire tournament. Per-game average scoring percentage of the skipper was 3.8%. Charith Perera is second in the top scorers list for Sri Lanka with 47 points. He was only bought to the starting line up in a couple of games; the matches against Maldives and Nepal. He scored 20 points in total in the Nepal match.
Mithila Abeysekara is the top scorer for Sri Lanka with 55 points. He had a decent all-around performance with a field goal percentage of 52.8%, free-throw percentage of 69.6% and a total of 27 rebounds.
Experienced campaigner Roshan Randima had a nightmare of a tournament. In total he has played 119.49mins and scored only 15 points. Roshan`s per-game average scoring percentage is 3.75%. Even though the coach did re-shuffle his starting 5 from game-to-game Sri Lanka was unable to lock down a proper combination to get on to a decent start.
The Bench
Bench points of Sri Lanka were on the top. Sri Lanka has scored a total number of 141 bench points. Clinton Thevakumar, Charith Perera, Timothy Nithushan & Sudesh Ahamed performed well at times when they were substituted.
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Clinton who did not start the match in the game vs Bangladesh went on to score 21 points and maintained a field goal percentage of 43.75%. Charith, when he was substituted in the India game went on to score a total of 18 points having a game time of 25mins with a field goal percentage of 75%. It also included 03 rebounds, 02 assists and a steal. Ahamed Sudesh had a game time of 22mins in the match vs Bangladesh and went on to become the top scorer of the match with 24 points.
Conclusion
A long term plan. Sri Lanka always has looked up at India as tough to match up. The difference is they made long term plans. India hired the services of the USA Coach Scott Fleming who changed the entire system altering their primary focus from offense to defense, which they adapt up to date. In 2014 when India beat China, in the post-match interview Scott Fleming mentions how the team believed in the system and even though in that match the shooting from the arc was poor their defense was solid as a rock and that was instrumental in beating the Asian heavyweights.
Sri Lanka, does not specifically need services of a foreign personal there are enough and more talented coaches in paradise island. All you need is a system, a game plan that suits the players, home-work regarding the nations you play against. All those summed up into one word is preparation, long term preparation.
