Fab Flournoy concedes Newcastle Eagles form dip
Last updated on .From the section Basketball
Player-coach Fab Flournoy says a multitude of factors have prompted the dip in form for Newcastle Eagles during the 2012-13 season.
Eagles, winners of all four trophies in 2012, lost January's and were knocked out of the Trophy in the quarter-finals.
"We've had significant injuries," Flournoy told BBC Look North.
"The attitude, the performance and my coaching performance just hasn't been good enough."
Flournoy added: "It was the perfect storm of all the wrong things to happen."
The loss of Flournoy through gastroenteritis, as well as Damon Huffman and Joe Chapman - last season's Most Valuable Player - at various stages through the season has proved costly.
"The buck stops and starts with me. Injuries have hurt us big time, but that's still not the reason why [the side's form has dipped]," Flournoy said.
"I won't use those as excuses, we've had them in past title runs, it's the combination of injuries and the personnel.
"We have a lot of new guys and a young team who are still learning, that gets magnified when you lose two major pieces of the team.
"Normally when a team loses those players they bring another player in, we didn't bring another player in because it was a critical point, if you bring in another player you lose the chance to bring that injured player back.
"We thought we could get through it, and we haven't."
Although still in close proximity to leaders Leicester in the table, with just six points separating the two clubs, league form has also suffered, with five defeats already compared to seven in the regular season for the whole of 2012.
"It [the slump] started in January, we had the disappointment of the cup final [defeat by Leicester] and we didn't show up. We did not perform well," Flournoy continued.
"We were probably a little bit too complacent and it showed and then we had an amazing comeback and fight, [which was] fantastic, but we lost.
"That was indicative of the game and the season."
