Birmingham Bullets 115 (27,58,84)
Essex & Herts Leopards 74 (12,32,54)

Leopards return to BBL action ended in disappointment as they found sharp-shooting Birmingham Bullets too strong in their opening Trophy game. The Bullets drained 13 three-pointers as they led from tip to buzzer to remain top of the group.

To make matters worse for the Big Cats, they saw Laurent Irish ejected from the game midway through the second period after an altercation with former Leopard Yorick Williams, who was also thrown out of the game.

To give Jon Burnell’s team credit, they produced a committed display, even after the hosts scored the first 14 points, but found themselves outgunned by the Bullets’ four American imports and England international Williams. With Deaundra Tanner draining two treys and Jeff Bonds one in the opening minutes, Bullets rushed into a 14-0 lead before a pair of Steve Ogunjimi free-throws put Leopards on the scoreboard. Errol Seaman, Troy Selvey and Irish all managed to get on the scoresheet as Leopards’ confidence grew, but with Bullets looking capable of scoring on every offense, the Big Cats trailed by 15 at the first break.

Five points each from Sam Salter and Irish saw the Big Cats reduce the arrears to ten point, forcing home coach Scouson Harker call a time-out with 6:59 of the second period remaining, and the move clearly worked as his side scored ten straight points. The altercation started when Williams threw an elbow at Irish, and with the Leopards player retaliating, both players picked up technical fouls. Within 90 seconds both players had been ejected as neither of them seemed willing to let the situation drop, and a second flare up ended their participation for the night. The loss of Irish, who had caused Bullets problem with his repeated slashes to the basket, clearly hurt Leopards more than Williams’ departure for the home side who were already in control, but a sweet shot from Matt Eames (pictured) reduced the half-time deficit to 26.

Despite the game being effectively over, Bullet coach Harker continued with his starting five, but Leopards were able to score consistently, often from the charity stripe as Bullets racked up the fouls. Troy Selvey led the third period scoring for Leopards with nine, on his way to a team-high 18 points, while Ogunjimi added five as Leopards trailed by 30 at the final break.

With Roger Lloyd away, Irish ejected and Brian Moore injured, coach Burnell had only a seven man rotation for most of the game, and the Big Cats noticeably tired in the final period. Salter added a pair of threes to finish with, and both Dave Jones and skipper Eames each scored five, with the latter having a fine first game at this level of basketball, but a Bond trey seconds before the end took the win about the 40-point mark as Leopards’ efforts were in vain.

Leopards: T Selvey 18, S Ogunjimi 15, S Salter 13, M Eames 10, L Irish 8, D Jones 5, E Seaman 4, S Buck 3, E Gregory (DNP).