EThey remained on the floor without moving, as if stunned, for long seconds. Wild looks, trying to find on the faces of her teammates a sign, something, that could explain what had just happened. An incredulity which had almost frozen into a mask on the face of their captain Clarince Djaldi-Tabdi, when he came to decipher this total disillusionment.
It must be said that the Landes lost a lot in less than a second (five tenths exactly), when Noémie Brochant's shot, triggered as the clock finished counting down, made the nets shake at the same time as the red light indicating the end of debates lit up. The match, their invincibility in their gym, which had lasted for almost a year in the championship and to which the group was obviously extremely attached.
A good opportunity to gain confidence before the series of high-stakes matches, in the Euroleague and Coupe de France in particular, while they fall one place in the Women's League standings. There are now 5esdubbed among others by their tormentor of the day. The latter definitely wanted to erase the inaugural slap received at home at the end of September (61-94), and confirm an effective end to the year materialized by a series of four victories. They achieved this at the cost of unfailing self-sacrifice, while, more than once, Basket Landes had the opportunity to definitively take off.
An accumulation of errors
“I don't think we lost on the last shot, it's the accumulation of mistakes we made in the second half. We lost too many balls, we had to remain disciplined and we weren't. Now, the team opposite gave us problems that we were unable to resolve,” analyzed Clarince Djaldi-Tabdi. The Landeses also and above all paid a high price for a certain lack of skill, both on outside shots (only 5 converted out of 21 attempts) and in the racket: 42.4% overall success, it was too little. A failure illustrated, like a bad omen, by a slow start to the match, materialized by a first basket scored after more than two minutes of play, by Luisa Geselsöder, and a first quarter concluded with a very small 13-10 in favor of the Carolos.
The rest of the meeting would resemble a rubber band that stretches then retracts, until it bounces back in an unexpected way. The second quarter finally allowed the Landes to find some bearings and a semblance of ease in their game and in the score (32-25 at the break)? Alas, they saw their lead melt away like snow in the sun after returning from the locker room against the Flames carried by Tiffany Clarke (two baskets in quick succession, 39-40, 26e). The American, with her 22 points and her 26 rating, will have caused a lot of torment to the Montoises, who were again 11 points ahead after half an hour of play (51-40 in the 32eexactly).
The 20 points of Leïla Lacan, also credited with an evaluation of 26, will therefore not have been enough, not even the two long-distance shots that she chained together before the end of a third quarter during which we thought the Landaises not yet completely serene but finally in the right rhythm. Everything unraveled in a fourth act during which Basket Landes found it increasingly difficult to manage its lead (+2 at 1'30” from time). Until being overtaken about twenty seconds from the end of the match (61-62) on a winning shot from the inevitable Tiffany Clarke.
It then took all the composure under Luisa Geiselsöder's circle to finally put hers back, and for good we thought, in front. There was then three times nothing left to play. But three times too many. Ardennes coach Romuald Yernaux, a fine player, agreed: “It's basketball, with its share of surprises, in a match that they mastered more than us overall. We played a bit of a game of stragglers but without giving up, without giving up. And by never giving up, we managed to give ourselves the opportunity to win. »
“No time to feel sorry for yourself”
“A match is built over 40 minutes. Before there were opportunities, perhaps, to be seized and better controlled to avoid this situation where we give ourselves the opportunity to be beaten,” added Olivier Constant, Julie Barennes' deputy, who must have said so. admit: this is not the first time that the Landaises have held out the stick. Already, during the last match of 2024, the sanction had not gone far like La Roche Vendée (70-67).
Clarince Djaldi-Tabdi confirmed. “This scenario which repeats itself, yes, it is something that we have observed, these are things that we, individually and as a team, must resolve. These losses of balls which are costly for us, these are things that we work on. These are lessons for the future. It's a defeat but it's not the end of the championship or the end of the world. » Which continues to turn: this Wednesday, another team will set foot on the Mitterrand floor, the Mersin of Marine Fauthoux, leader of the Euroleague group. So digestion will have to happen very quickly.
“We move on, we don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves, on the contrary: we have to be in action and that starts from the next training session. You have to come with your head held high, with ambition, with discipline. No one cheats in this team, everyone will use this frustration to move forward,” whispered Clarince Djaldi-Tabdi, joined by Olivier Constant. “The sequence of matches will help us. In three days, we're playing Mersin and it's great! Of course we are all marked but we continue. There is no time to think and that's fine, but there is still time to analyze what went wrong. »And try to bounce back as quickly as possible.
