Coach Reaction: Keenan gives thoughts on win over Azerbaijan

On the win over Azerbaijan

Absolutely delighted with the win, probably one of the best first halves we’ve seen here from ourselves, so absolutely delighted. We built up a great lead, obviously in the second half it’s hard to keep up that intensity, when you get 25-30 up, but overall delighted. It’s the first half of the job though, the second half to come on Sunday. 

On the defensive performance of his players

67, that’s great, we probably thought it was going to be in the 70’s. We set our stall out, they only scored 25 at half-time. You had Aidan with a couple of big blocks, Neal, coming from behind the defence and that only gives us energy. Their American Azerbaijani got going, but to be honest the game was over at that stage, so I think we did a great job on him in the first half and we contested every possession defensively and sweeped up the rebounds then to boot, so overall delighted with the defensive performance.

On Sean Flood

He set the tone from the start of the game, he was really up for it. He showed his true professionalism I think there tonight, a high level pro, I am delighted for him.

Ireland face Kosovo at 5pm on Sunday in their next FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 European Pre-Qualifier at the National Basketball Arena

We’re saying it’s only half-time now, we’ve got to come out on Sunday and finish the job, so we’ll start looking at them now. Up until now it was all about this game, because Sunday wouldn’t have mattered if we didn’t win tonight, now we can take stock and prepare for Sunday.