TDM1 Game Review: Kortrijk Spurs – Kontich Wolves (4/10/2020)

In the final game of the TDM1 opening round (other than the 2 games that were postponed due to Coronavirus infections) we saw the battle of the newcomers with the Kortrijk Spurs hosting the Kontich Wolves.

And a battle it certainly was, with a lot of fouls called on both sides… but we’ll get to that later. Eitherway it was Kontich that jumped out the gate and racked up a maximum lead of 12 points early on before the home-team reduced it to 7 to end the opening quarter with the 19-26 score.

Kortrijk now got into the swing of things and with a pair of three-pointers and solid inside play by Leemans they closed the gap entirely halfway the second quarter (31-31) and remained so the rest of the way for the 43-43 score at the half.

The home-team got rolling to start the second half and placed a 6-0 run before Van Aken and Caron closed the gap again. Youngster Coucke and the inevitable Leemans were pretty insistent for the Spurs though and got them up to an 11 point lead (60-49) with a little more than 2 minutes left in the third quarter to eventually close the quarter on the 64-57 score.

In the final quarter Peeters did everything he could for the Wolves but he got outgunned by Coucke and Leemans who kept the Spurs in front and even increased their lead to 14 points (their biggest lead of the game) with a little less than 4 minutes left. In those final minutes Kontich was unable to overcome the deficit and so Kortrijk Spurs came away with the 93-83 victory.

Remember when I said it was a battle? When all was said and done, Kortrijk had committed 28 fouls, while Kontich recorded 31 fouls. Good for a total of 38 FT’s taken by Kortrijk and 28 taken by Kontich. Not surprisingly, all in all a total of 6 players fouled-out of this game (2 for Kortrijk and 4 for Kontich), which obviously had a large impact on the end-result.

In any case, Kortrijk outlasted the Wolves and got this win with Player of the Game Stan Leemans providing most of their input with his 24 points (10-17 FG’s, 4-7 FT’s) and 11 rebounds. Youngster Mathieu Coucke wasn’t far behind as he finished with 23 points on 4-10 FG shooting and a perfect 12-12 at the charity stripe. Robbe Naudts also had a big impact and had a Double-Double of his own with his 15 points & 11 rebounds.

The best performance from this weekend actually goes to Philippe Peeters who ended up with 34 points (9-18 FG’s & 13-14 FT’s) but unfortunately for him it came in a loss. Experienced forward Eli Van Aken chipped in with 14 points for the Wolves, while big man Anthony Vermeersch finished with 9 points & 13 rebounds.