![\"Ireland's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/edb1b947-1d2f-43f4-bc98-aa81d3400ee4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\nIreland 76 North Macedonia 88\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ireland’s Sam Alajiki in action against Jacob Wiley of North Macedonia during the Fiba EuroBasket 2029 pre-qualifier at the National Basketball Arena. Photo: Shauna Clinton\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s hopes of reaching EuroBasket 2029 suffered another setback with this 12-point defeat at the National Basketball Arena.<\/p>\n
The result deepens their struggles after losing to Luxembourg in their campaign\u2019s opening game, marking a unfortunate start to Michael Bree\u2019s reign as head coach.<\/p>\n
The Sligo man will now hope his side can regroup in March\u2019s international window and keep alive their chances of progressing by either topping Group A or securing the best runner-up spot.<\/p>\n
Ireland knew the challenge that stood in their way against the top seeds in Tallaght, but improved showed a marked improvement here after the defeat to Luxembourg.<\/p>\n
They led for most of the first half before North Macedonia reeled them in the final period, thanks to their American-born top scorer Jacob Wiley (29 points). An long break in play as umpires reviewed a Matt Zona foul finally halted Ireland\u2019s momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ran out of steam. It was just so tough and so physical,\u201d Bree said of the last quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was reading the defence and the coverages. Guys are exhausted. The ball stops. We start dribbling. It\u2019s a learning experience for all of us. We got to take the positive out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The performance of Sam Alajiki was one such positive, with the Dundalk man shooting 25 points to get Ireland off to flyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cSam has a lot of talent. I\u2019ve been super impressed by him. He\u2019s got fire and passion and is exactly what this team needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Se\u00e1n Flood drew first blood with a two-point jump shot while Alajiki shot 10 points in the opening quarter, allowing Ireland end the period 27-20 ahead.<\/p>\n
North Macedonia began to chip away at Ireland\u2019s lead though. When Wiley reduced the gap to just two points an animated, Bree called for a time out but they failed to reassert the same control.<\/p>\n
A Stojan Gjuroski three-pointer put the visitors ahead for the first time and North Macedonia enjoyed a 42-40 lead at half-time.<\/p>\n
It remained tight in the third quarter as Alajiki added another 10 points in this period which put the home side one point ahead (62-61).<\/p>\n
The six-foot-ten Neal Quinn shot 18 points and had helped Ireland dominate in the paint early on but Bree\u2019s men would run out of the steam, leaving it all to do in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland 76 North Macedonia 88 Ireland’s Sam Alajiki in action against Jacob Wiley of North Macedonia during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9485,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-168139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-barry-lennon","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}