Midnight Madness Suffer First Round Exit At Quai 54

It was disappointment once again for the Midnight Madness team entered in this year’s Quai 54 as they suffered a first round exit to French side “Hoodmix” on Saturday.

Quai 54, which Nhamo Shire likens to having “a big streetball-Midnight Madness type tournament in the middle of Trafalgar Square”, is arguably the biggest international streetball tournament in the world, and heading into the weekend, the Midnight Madness founder was feeling good about his team’s chances.

“We’re really excited because potentially we have a really good mix of players,” Nhamo Shire explained,”the very best team that has been winning it the last 3 years aren’t playing this year. It’s wide open right now, anyone can win it looking at the standard of teams, real talk, we could have, we should have, been in with a chance.When Matthew (Bryan-Amaning) didn’t get drafted, he was going to come out there as well and Will Neighbour became available.”

All was looking well as the team headed to the airport on Friday night but it wasn’t long before the team faced their first obstacle. “”We get to the airport, and somehow, the night before, somehow, Germayne’s (Forbes) passport got washed in the washing machine. The thing was washed out, you couldn’t see the picture and there was no way they were gonna let him travel.”

That was the catalyst for a crazy 24 hours for Forbes as he headed to the embassy for an emergency passport and had his flight rescheduled whilst the rest of the team headed to Paris.

Things didn’t get any better as on arrival Midnight Madness discovered their game was scheduled for 12pm on Saturday. Germayne’s flight arrived into Paris at 12.10. Despite pleading from the British team, Quai 54 officials refused to reschedule the game, despite it making little difference who plays when. Midnight Madness had to face the harsh reality they would be playing without Forbes.

The weekend went from bad to worse as shortly afterward Nhamo received a call from Matthew’s agent informing him the 6’9″ GB forward wasn’t going to be able to make it due to costs.

Without Forbes and MBA, the team were up against Hoodmix. An athletic French team, who Shire knew were not to be taken lightly. “They were good. They lost to the eventual winners by 3 points leading them by 6 with only a few minutes to play. They had a French national guard on their team who was real nice, they had a bunch of athletes, long, 6’7″, 6’8, 6’9″s who can jump.”

Midnight Madness started Perry Lawson, Will Neighbour, Tayo Ogedengbe, Mike Martin and Olu Babalola, jumping to a 7-2 lead on their opponents and looked in healthy shape.

But then the pressure came “They start pressuring our guards. That backcourt can be a lonely place when you have thousands of people watching you. The environment got to us. Our guards struggled and it became the Olu Babalola show, he was having to run the point, run wing, do everything. To be fair, Olu, did us and did the UK proud. He looked good out there.” A dominant first half from Olu Babalola which he finished with a no look dish to Mike Martin for a dunk put Midnight Madness up 1 at half time.

It was a different story in the second half however, as Olu stopped getting the calls. “He was going to the basket and getting hacked and the refs weren’t blowing their whistles. It felt like it was 7 vs 5.”

Hoodmix ran out 22-14 winners (12 minute halves, running clock). Germayne Forbes showed up 20 minutes after the buzzer sounded.

Despite a first round exit for the second year in a row, Nhamo remains optimistic,  “I’m hoping that the positives are the guys that were out there will take something from it. The competitor in me knows we can win this tournament, we just have to get the right blend of players all available at the same time.”

“The tournament was amazing. A real spectacle, but playing-wise, I feel there could be improvements”. Nhamo pointed to 12 minute running halves and the referees as the two main issues he’d like to be dealt with, a gripe, he says, every other international team felt the same way about.

He also had a heap of praise for Will Neighbour, a recent UALR commit. “Will was one of the youngest players in the tournament and did well. I’m telling you Will Neighbour can play ball, he doesn’t jump out at you in terms of being flashy, but his game is so effective. Defensively he changes shots because he’s long, offensively he’s a great passer and can shoot. He’s just got a good skill set…if he gets stronger, boy, we’ve got somebody who everyone’s gonna be talking  about in the next few years.”

Olu Babalola was Madness’ strongest player, and Nhamo feels, few know how good he can be; “You put Olu into a GB setting and he’s liable to just sit back because he’s not needed to be spectacular. But in this situation when we’re in the pressure cooker and it has to be him…if we saw that Olu every week in the BBL I think he’d be the MVP. He was getting to the hole, guarding their best wing, rebounding, passing. Olu was our best player.”

Final reflections?

“I don’t like to lose and make excuses, I don’t like that, at the end of the day you make your free throws and cut down on the turnovers and you win the game. But saying that, the reason we lost this year? First and foremost is Germayne Forbes, because if we have him and what he brings to the table we win that game. We were up at the half, and second half we go into complete drought. It’s frustrating, but it is what it is.”

“I’m not being a sour grape, but end of the day we lost, nothing we can do but learn from it. So next year we’ll get everyone’s passport at least 2 days before we fly! (laughs) It’s done and dusted, now we’re on to the rest of the summer.”

Check out this nice teaser video of the 2011 edition of Quai 54 from Ofive TV to get an idea of what went down…