Poch: “It is clear that Andorra is not a team to be here”
Trifón Poch, Alimerka Oviedo Basketball coach, is already preparing for his next challenge: knocking out Andorra, one of the best teams in the category. The Oviedo team will face the Andorrans tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. on the field of the LEB_Oro co-leaders. “After the 0-7 against, we don’t care where we play or the name of the rival, we are going to go out to death,” said the coach of the Carbayón team before the match.
“We’re having good feelings and we’re competing well, this doesn’t have to be any different in Andorra,” said the coach, who was aware of his rival’s level, but still wants his pupils to give everything “to compete as these last few weeks.”
For Poch, the Andorran team has “many players who could be in the ACB”, since the pupils of the ex-carbayón player Natxo Lezcano are “either the first or among the best in everything: points, assists, rebounds, percentages in three-pointers… They are a very complete team, with many arguments.” “It is clear that Andorra is not a team to be here, but we are going to try to give our best version”, highlights the coach.
The Oviedo Basketball squad arrives after enjoying a few days of vacation for Christmas, but Poch doesn’t want excuses for tomorrow’s game. “The work has not been different from what we do every week. We have had less training time, but we have analyzed our rivals to the maximum”, he commented, making it clear that the objective is to “be faithful to what we have been doing up to now to get a good result.”
“We are going to need a great defensive job. Andorra is the team that scores the most points, has the best three-point percentage in the league,” explained the Catalan, who focused on Jhonny Dee, an American guard who borders on 50% of success in the shot of three. “And he is not the only one, because they are full of good players”, highlighted the coach, who believes that the key to victory is to limit the offensive capacity of the Andorrans as much as possible. “We have to do a defensive job to lower those percentages. We are not being solid on the rebound and that hurts us. In the last game it was the key to the defeat, because we lost by a final tap-off. We need solid back and rebounding to compete,” he said.
The good news comes in the physical state of the squad. “I’m the one who’s worse off,” joked Poch, who revealed that he has all his players available for tomorrow’s game. “I knock on wood, but the time of crisis seems to have been left behind,” he confessed.