By Aline Chatel
Published on
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On March 11, the Caen BC will start the second phase of National 1 with a provisional record of three wins for five losses. These are their results against the other four teams in the top 5 in the regular season. The Caennais are far from the expected passing times. It must be said that they did not present their best face in the regular season… What did they miss? Attempt to answer in four points.
A real collective
Has CBC’s great strength last season become its main weakness? With its 11 players of fairly close level – in particular because those who had to stand out on an individual level did not succeed – Caen did not display the cohesion which had allowed it to distinguish itself in the yet recent past. “We don’t put the ingredients together,” laments Fabrice Courcier. We tend to look at each other a little too much. We are not in the solidarity that should be ours in view of our ambitions. The Caen coach declines this observation from several angles.
When I speak of solidarity, it encompasses intensity, sacrificial work and enthusiasm. What I regret is also this lack of enthusiasm, the one that makes you manage to sublimate yourself.
Of course, the big games were the best indicators of this problem. In difficulty, the Caennais have too often sought the individual option. The collective was first lacking where it is expected the most, in the game. Moreover, of the two pools of NM1 combined, Caen only appears in fifteenth position in the ranking of assists. Surely no coincidence…
individual performance
It’s obvious: there can be no collective success without individual performance. However, only one or two players from Caen BC – we think mainly of the good surprise Frédéric Loubaki and Moïse Diamé – appeared at the level of performance expected of them. The leading scorer, Kevin Bracy-Davis, finished with 12.3 points per game on average. The best passer, who has been a benchmark in the championship for several seasons, does not reach four assists per game. This is Olivier Romain. Admittedly, the distribution of playing time between 11 players does not favor individual statistics, but all the same…
We have a team that has ambitions, a club that puts the means to live up to its ambitions, it is not tolerable to fall below a threshold in investment and performance.
Awkward at three points (only the Federal Centre, Épinal and Kaysersberg have a lower success rate than Caen at three points in the pool), Caen also distinguished itself by a success in catastrophic free throws in the return phase. “This part denotes a fragility. It’s not normal to have these percentages, ”slices Fabrice Courcier. They testify to the doubt that took hold of the Normans…
Of leadership
On paper, leaders are almost everywhere. On the ground, they are almost nowhere. Moïse Diamé did try to assume this role, he being the captain, but throughout the exercise, no one really honored this responsibility. This was all too obvious during the last match in Mulhouse, when the CBC suddenly lost the thread. Fabrice Courcier does not hide.
I made the choice to have an experienced team. It is clear that there is no leader. It immediately becomes more complicated.
It is not for lack of having profiles for all positions. Too much for one or two to flourish? Hard to know. One thing is certain, no one managed to put everyone back together when the team lost track. “We may not have enough character…”
successful foreigners
They arrive crowned with flattering statistics, they leave cut off or without having convinced. For several seasons, the level of foreign players has been a mystery in Caen. However, they do not have “the same contractual situation” as those of other National 1 clubs in their vast majority. Kevin Bracy-Davis, very far from the mark since the return of Florian Thibedore, and Martins Igbanu, whom we have seen only once or twice to his advantage, are not the added value expected of them.
This tends to spread to the whole team.
What is hidden behind these repeated counter-performances? Casting errors or difficulty adapting to the Caen game, which does not “starify” as much as others? Probably a set of items. We will have to do better in the second half of the season to exist.
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