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The men's basketball team won three of four games on its just concluded tour of Canada in site of trailing at half time in every game.

The only game the team lost was the one it played on the day it arrived, and even still, they only lost by one basket as Bermuda fell 67 to 70 a Toronto club team.

Head coach Roderick Spencer said: "We were very much in with a chance to win this game after playing far from our best basketball, but came up short at the end by one basket.

"I gave everyone a chance to show why they should get a spot on the 2007 Island games team and I was very impressed with some of the new guys."

Leading the way for Bermuda was Graham Robinson (19 points), Chris Crumpler (15 pts) and Dale Jackson (15 pts).

The next game was in Niagara against a team made up of ex-Canadian and U.S. university players

Bermuda fell behind 47-38 in the first half. In the second half Bermuda played great defence and held them to 28 points to win the game 84-75.

Crumpler was top scorer for Bermuda with 31. Graham Robinson had 19 and Phil Davis came off the bench with 11. There were several standouts on defence.

The third game in three days saw Bermuda take on virtually the same team, but with former Duke Blue Devil, 6'10", Greg Newton added to the opposition.

Bermuda trailed at the half 42 to 41 - a good showing as centre Greg Todd was injured.

Spencer said: "It turned into a shootout and battle of desire. The Bermuda guys won most of those battles. John Lee made two free throws with 20 seconds left in the game to give us a three-point lead that we defended till the end."

Bermuda won 89 to 86 with Crumpler top scorer with 31 points. Robinson and Lee added 24 and 12 points respectively.

The last game was against a Toronto high school all-star team. Bermuda struggled and trailed 31 to 37 against the kids.

Spencer said: "At the half I had a little talk with the guys and we came into the second half with a little more desire and focus."

Bermuda outscored the all-stars 56 to 30 in the second half to win 87 to 67.

Crumpler had 31 point while Dean Jones and Steven Simons both had 13 points.

Spencer said: "This was very good learning opportunity for the Bermuda team and will go along way to getting them ready for the Island Games later this summer. There were several highlights during this tour the biggest being the times where we saw the type of team defence the coaches know this team can play and will need to play if we are to have success at the Island Games. We had a few disappointments but nothing we can't address before we leave for the games in June."[[In-content Ad]]

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