Ireland 76-86 North Macedonia
Ireland pushed Group A top seeds North Macedonia all the way, before eventually succumbing 88-76 in their FIBA EuroBasket 2029 Pre-Qualifiers contest at the National Basketball Arena on Sunday.
Sam Alajiki hit 26 points and had 10 rebounds in a fine all-round performance for the home side.
Ireland led for long stretches, with 62-61 the score at the end of third quarter and trailed by just a single point with three and a half minutes of the contest left.
Unfortunately they ran out of steam down the stretch, having lost the influential Neal Quinn and Rapolas Buivydas for the closing stages.
Ireland head coach Michael Bree said: "Sad and a little disappointed, very encouraged at the same time. We played really hard, some guys had massive performances, Sam (Alajiki) was fantastic, we just couldn't finish it at the end of the game, we ran out of bodies, big physical bodies, and that was very important for us in the gameplan that we had, just running out of bodies was a problem."
Three’s from captain Sean Flood and Alajiki, either side of Jordan Blount’s layup, gave Ireland the ideal start, moving to an early 8-0 lead.
By the midpoint of the first quarter they were 18-9 ahead, following a pair of Taiwo Badmus free throws.
North Macedonia rattled off a seven-point run, with Andrej Jakimovski scoring five, to cut the deficit to 18-16 with a little over three minutes to go in quarter.
A pair of Alajiki free throws in the closing seconds gave Ireland the lead 27-20 by the end of the quarter.
Ireland grabbed the opening four points of the second quarter through Blount and Alajik but North Macedonia had another seven-point run, with Jacob Wiley’s three point jump shot finishing their scoring sequence, to trail 35-32.
North Macedonia were finding their range, a pair of corner three’s from Adem Mekic and Stojan Gjuroski helped the away side into a 40-37 lead. Ireland responded with a deep three from Flood to bring it level, but Andrej Magdevski’s score in the closing seconds nudged North Macedonia into a narrow 42-40 half-time lead.
Ireland got themselves level through Quinn, while Alajiki got the home crowd to their feet with a dunk to put Ireland 44-42 ahead. The impressive Alajiki hit a big three just after the midpoint, to make it 55-53 and to bring his tally to 26.
The lead continued to switch throughout the quarter. Ireland had the narrowest of advantages by the end of the third, 62-61, following Quinn’s layup under the basket.
A five point run at the start of the fourth edged North Macedonia back in front, 66-62, following Andrej Magdevski’s layup. Ireland then had an seven-point run themselves, finished off by a neat Flood floater, to put them 69-66 up with three minutes gone.
Ireland then lost Quinn for the for the last two and a half minutes after he picked up his fifth foul and 30 seconds later Rapolas Buivydas also walked following a lengthy review.
Adem Mekic converted his two free throws to make it 77-72. A deep three from Vojdan Stojanovski and it was 82-74 with 1’16 to go and ultimately it left Ireland with too much to do.
Speaking afterwards Bree added: "We ran out of stream a little bit in the middle of the fourth and we could tell, the ball was stopping, we were doing things that we wouldn’t normally do. We were in the mindset, we were exhausted and when you’re exhausted your autopilot is kicking in and sometimes in autopilot starts and you just keep dribbling and you stay in places, you become stagnant as an offence and that’s what we did for periods of time.
"We survived, we were close, we were right there, but we need to get to a point where our conditioning level is so good that we can maintain the type of tempo and speed we want throughout the four quarters."
Next up for Ireland are back-to-back home games against Azerbaijan on February 27th, followed by Luxembourg on March 2nd and Bree believes that qualification is still very much in Ireland’s hands.
"Absolutely, you never know in sport, every game is different, we have an opportunity to get two wins, two competitive games, hopefully build on what we’ve been working on up to this point and if we get a win get a momentum then who knows what happens in the last four games," Breen said.
"We can turn everything around – 12 points is not that big – Luxembourg and Macedonia we can win both games and who knows, in sport maybe things can work out in our favour."
Quarter Scores: Q1: 27-20, Q2: 13-22, Q3: 22-19, Q4: 14-27
Game Scores: Q1: 27-20, Q2: 40-42, Q3: 62-61, Q4: 76-88
Ireland: Adrian O’Sullivan (3), Rapolas Buivydas (2), Sean Jenkins (DNP), Sean Flood (17), Conor Quinn (DNP), Jordan Blount (7), Taiwo Badmus (7), Matt Treacy (0), Matt Zona (4), Eoin Nelson (DNP), Neal Quinn (10), Sam Alajiki (26)
North Macedonia: Viktor Tashovski (DNP), Andrej Mitrevski (DNP), Luka Stojanovski (0) Valjmiri Kakruki (0), Vojdan Stojanovski (11), Andrej Magdevski (8), Adem Mekic (12), Stojan Gjuroski (3), Teodor Simikj (DNP), Andrej Jakimovski (26), Jacob Wiley (20), Lejson Zeqiri (8)
