![\"Ireland's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4988129_2_articleinline_94080_2901364.jpg\" "\\"Ireland's")
Ireland’s Jordan Blount with his daughter Layla, aged 1, after winning the game. Blount announced his retirement from 5v5 international basketball before the match. Pic: \u00a9INPHO\/Tom Maher<\/p>\nIreland put in a dogged performance to beat Luxembourg 91-85 and pick up their first win of their FIBA EuroBasket 2029 Pre-Qualifiers campaign and first under new head coach Michael Bree. The did so effectively only using a seven player rotation, as injury ruled out Sam Alajiki and Rapolas Buivydas beforehand, while three players only came off the bench in the closing seconds.<\/p>\n
Ryan Leonard, in just his second Fiba EuroBasket game, hit six threes on his way to a 21 point haul, while Neal Quinn finished with a team-high 22 points and CJ Fulton showed his class with 12 assists and seven points, as he dictated the tempo for much of the second half, with Michael Bree afterwards hailing \u201ca really great team performance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ireland started brightly, threes from Leonard and Matt Zona helped them into an early 6-2 lead. A Fulton layup had Ireland 15-9 up midway through the quarter. A Quinn alley oop layup and additional free throw put Ireland 22-13 to the good with a little over three minutes left, Quinn had picked up nine of Ireland\u2019s points in the opening quarter. Luxembourg responded with a nine point run, finished off by a layup from Oliver Vujakovic, to leave them 23-22 ahead at the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Ireland nudged themselves back in front thanks to an eight point run, five of those points were scored by Adrian O\u2019Sullivan, a three pointer and a layup, to put Ireland 30-23 up three and half minutes into the quarter. A two point shot from Vujakovic snapped Ireland\u2019s scoring, but captain Sean Flood followed it with a long range three. By the time Quinn had unloaded a dunk by the midpoint, Ireland were 35-27 ahead. Luxembourg came back into the contest thanks to back-to-back baskets from Clancy Rugg and Ben Kovac, to reduce the deficit to four. It would be the same margin by half-time, a pair of Zona free throws in the final minute had Ireland 39-35 ahead.<\/p>\n
Ireland started the third with a Zona three. A corner three from Leonard and Zona\u2019s second from the three point line in the quarter stretched Ireland\u2019s lead to 13 points, 50-37, with a little over two minutes gone, prompting a Luxembourg timeout. They came out of it with a Rugg jump shot, but Leonard was proving clinical from the three point line, he drained two more to put Ireland 58-44 up midway through the quarter. Luxembourg ate into Ireland\u2019s lead, a deep three from Kovac made it a five point game, 58-53, with three minutes to go.<\/p>\n
Ireland’s Jordan Blount with his daughter Layla, aged 1, after winning the game. Blount announced his retirement from 5v5 international basketball before the match. Pic: \u00a9INPHO\/Tom Maher<\/p>\n
Jordan Blount, who announced his retirement from 5×5 international basketball prior to the game, provided the assist for Quinn\u2019s dunk to make it 60-53. Ireland would lead 65-56 by the end of the quarter.<\/p>\n
Luxembourg made fast start to the fourth thanks to Philippe Gutenkauf\u2019s jump shot and two Kovac free throws. Ireland responded emphatically with back-to back three\u2019s from Zona and Leonard, to put them 71-60 ahead two minutes in. Luxembourg rattled off five points through a Rugg three and a Kovac driving layup.<\/p>\n
A Fulton three and a Quinn layup helped Ireland into a 77-69 lead halfway through the quarter. Ireland\u2019s lead was 10 points, 82-72, with four minutes to go when Flood landed from the three point line. Fulton was pulling the strings, he picked out Quinn for his layup and Ireland led 84-74 with three and a half minutes remaining. The Iowa Wolves man was at it again for O’Sullivan\u2019s layup and Ireland were 88-77 ahead with a minute and a half to go. Sean Fitzpatrick came off the bench late on to make his international debut, as Ireland closed out the game.<\/p>\n
Ireland head coach, Michael Bree, said: \u201cI am delighted, the guys believed in what we\u2019re trying to do and they executed brilliantly on the floor. I think we had a couple of possessions where we lost our way, but for the most part we were in control of what we were doing and what we were trying to do. Ryan Leonard was fantastic, Matt Zona fantastic, the guards getting rid of the ball was brilliant and it was a really great team performance, I am delighted for them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked about having to manage the effective seven player rotation, Bree added: \u201cI didn\u2019t have to manage it, they had to manage it, they survived, they\u2019re well able to do it, they\u2019re pros, so they play a lot, they\u2019re going to have a rest tomorrow, so they\u2019re okay. I was good with it, maybe they\u2019re going to feel sore, but I was good with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ireland are now 1-3 in Group A, next up is back-to-back away games against North Macedonia and Azerbaijan in July. The group winners and best ranked second placed team from three groups advance to the second round of qualifying\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Game Scores:\u00a0Q1: 22-23, Q2: 39-35, Q3: 65-56, Q4: 91-85\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n IRELAND: Adrian O\u2019Sullivan (7), CJ Fulton (7), Sean Fitzpatrick (0), Ryan Leonard (21), Sean Flood (16), Jordan Blount (0), James Gormley (0), Matt Zona (18), Eoin Nelson (0), Neal Quinn (14).<\/p>\n
LUXEMBOURG:\u00a0Malcolm Kreps (9), Dino Ceman (DNP), Max Logelin (4), Philippe Gutenkauf (15), Joe Kalmes (7), Ben Kovac (17), Davy David Rocha (0), Oliver Vujakovic (8), Christopher Jack (0), Yannick Verbeelen (DNP), Clancy Rugg (23), Ivor Kuresevic (2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland put in a dogged performance to beat Luxembourg 91-85 and pick up their first win of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[46615,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-325771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-basketball","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325771","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=325771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}