Ireland 75-76 Azerbaijan
Ireland’s Eurobasket 2029 qualifying campaign lay in tatters after a narrow 76-75 home defeat to an emotion-filled performance by Azerbaijan, the bottom-ranked country in the group.
There was no glossing over what was a disjointed Ireland display at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght against opposition they had convincingly defeated twice, both home and away, in the previous Eurobasket campaign.
There were signs from the start that this could be a hard day for the home side, who were facing an opposition ranked 104th in the world, 22 places behind Ireland in the FIBA world rankings.
In an evenly contested opening quarter, Ireland were well contained by the visitors, although they rallied from behind to lead 19-18 at the break.
Ireland had been particularly wasteful from the three-point line, landing only two of nine attempts, but the growing influence of CJ Fulton pulling the strings from the guard position began to exert an influence on the efficiency of the Irish offence.
Quarter two opened with Fulton’s sniping and passing offering assists for back-to-back scores from Sam Alijiki and seven-foot centre Neal Quinn, which took Ireland in front by four, but Azerbaijan were still countering effectively.
Guard Wesley van Beck and Kamran Mammadov were relentless in keeping them in the game and the visitors led 35-41 at half-time, helped in no small part by a 56% return from the three-point line against 33% from Ireland.
Within a minute of the restart, Van Beck landed two three-pointers to stretch the Azerbaijan lead to 12.
Ireland weren’t quite reeling but they needed a gear change and the opportunity to effect one came their way just 73 seconds into the second half as Van Beck left the game through the consequences of an unsportsmanlike foul on Sam Alijiki.
Azerbaijan held a 13-point lead at that stage but then faced virtually half the game without their American- born talisman.
Undeterred they pushed onto lead by 16 until Ireland finally found some inspiration and fluency.
In the closing seconds of the third, a Matt Zona three-pointer yielded the biggest roar of the night and two subsequent free throws by Alijiki helped Ireland close the gap to five points at 54-59 as they entered the final quarter.
Zona struck again with a three-pointer from the corner on the restart to shave the deficit to a point with just over eight minutes left on the clock, and seconds later, captain Sean Flood made two from two from the free throw line to put Ireland in front at 62-61 for the first time since the end of the opening quarter.
However, the visitors pushed on to lead by seven before a Flood three-pointer brought the deficit back to two.
Azerbaijan’s inspirational captain Amil Hamzayev then landed his second of two critical final-quarter three’s to push the visitors on to an unexpected and deserved victory.
The defeat was Ireland’s third on the spin out of three games in the group and they will look to Monday’s fourth game against Luxembourg seeking a first competitive win under coach Michael Bree, but with little chance of progressing from the group.