“I refuse to see this club sink” proclaims Ludovic Pouillart
Last of Pro B, Rouen needs to quickly garner success to return to the race for maintenance. Tuesday, the RMB was not far from beating Saint-Quentin. But the Norman team was scuttled in the last minutes before losing in extra time 90-84. A defeat that hurts the morale of the Rouennais very badly, as coach Ludovic Pouillart admits:
“This setback hurts my head especially since I think we did everything to take the match. We were leading by 12 points at the start of the fourth quarter. Everything is fine for us then they (Saint- Quentin, editor’s note) starts to harden the game and we stop playing as if the light had gone out”.
His team fell apart in the final minutes.
“As long as it doesn’t really count, we’re good and when it gets good, we look around to see who’s going to take control of the ball. Saint-Quentin found Kendall Anthony (14 points at 3/11) in the extension. Maybe we don’t have this player profile but it seems to me that we have a not too bad collective.(…) The fear of winning, I don’t believe in it! some of them put the handbrake on this (Tuesday) evening and we have people coming to see us and it’s still disappointing at the end”.
“When you have momentum, you have to close the match”
After scoring 12 points at the start of the fourth quarter (68-56), the RMB sank in the last five minutes. Ludovic Pouillart delivers his analysis:
“Between the fifth minute and extra time we lost 6 or 7 balls because we want to keep the ball too much, we dribble too much and the ball does not move. When we have momentum, we have to close the game. Today , we are still not able to close the match. We start the fourth quarter with a 12-point lead and in the last minutes we lead by 6 points (78-72) with the same players and the same systems and we “We can’t do it and we feel that we lack impact. The worst part of all this is that for 40 minutes we manage to keep the Zamora – Gillet – Anthony trio (33 points between them) while this season it’s represents 70% of Saint-Quentin’s points”.
“ I don’t lose faith in them“
Although Pro B’s red lantern with a record of 4 wins and 17 losses, and with 3 fewer wins than the penultimate Nantes, Ludovic Pouillart remains optimistic:
“Mathematically, I say that everything is doable with the desire to do it. We are in a situation that sent bad but we have to put our hands on it and close the match when it sent better. It remains frustrating. I players who are good guys. They work hard and I don’t lose faith in them. I refuse to see this club go down.”
On his side, Isaiah Philmore best scorer for the RMB with 21 points at 5/7 shooting success including 4/5 from 3-pointers, does not hide his disappointment:
“It’s disappointing, we are close to victory but we never finish the job. The only positive thing is that we played better than against ASA (90-75 defeat). Saint-Quentin is a team that you can’t beat that way. We let this victory slip away! We fought well but we made stupid mistakes and it doesn’t work against a team like that. complicated shots, they made very good decisions and they took more rebounds than us”.
Looking sad, the strong winger obviously does not share the same optimism as his coach:
“All is not black but a defeat remains a defeat. We are in a position in which we cannot say “OK, it’s only a defeat” because we are in an emergency situation and that breaks me the heart.”
Rouen will have to find the mental resources to recover and win at Tours this Saturday for the 23rd day of Pro B.