Trey Moore has trophy dreams

Mar 14 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

TREY Moore hopes to make it a dream start to 2009 by lifting the BBL Trophy with the Newcastle Eagles tomorrow after admitting he was still stunned by the election of Barack Obama as US president.

Moore has been a key member of the Eagles side which has gradually established its superiority on the rest of the BBL, adding his experience to a young, improving squad.

And the veteran guard from Texas hopes that dominance will be emphasised by a victory over Guildford Heat tomorrow, and the first of what he hopes will be a hat-trick of trophies this season. He said: “I’m still stunned by the American election. It’s a big change for us. I was happy, it almost brought tears to my ears and I hope that he can make a real difference.

“I was in my room, talking to my mum and I can still remember the feeling when he gave his inauguration speech. It made me feel real good about myself as a black American.

We can do anything as a people. The sky’s the limit. We’ve come a long way and it’s a great accomplishment. I never thought I’d see a black president in my lifetime, I’ve got to be honest with you, it was something we never thought could happen to our country.

“Things like that make you realise that you should dream, you should aspire to things and as far as Newcastle go, we believe we can win all three trophies left this season starting against Guildford on Sunday.

“There is the League, the Trophy and the Play-Offs to go for and this team is goiod enough to win all of them as long as we don’t make any stupid mistakes in the important games.”

The Eagles have not won in a final since they won the play-offs in 2007, losing the last game in both the Cup and Trophy last season.

That inability to turn their superiority into silverware still annoys Lynard Stewart, whose recovery from a knee injury should mean he is involved in some capacity against Heat.

He said: “I definitely want to win one this time because this is my second year and we only won the league last season, and that wasn’t enough by our standards.

It was really annoying to miss out in the finals last season. We should have done a clean sweep, but we slipped up in all of them. It was a learning experience, but we have a totally different group this year.”

And Stewart is confident a new side, with younger players like Tafari Toney and Reggie Jackson who are in their first season in British basketball, will not make the same mistakes as the complacent sides which fell at the final hurdles 12 months ago.

He said: “There is a core of young players and they are hungry, they want to win everything. I think we missed that a little bit last season when it came to one-off games.

“Last year, it’s difficult to put your finger on it, but we need that young edge, the players who are going play hard no matter what.

“The teams played hard against us in the finals and we didn’t match that. I don’t think we will have that problem this time because this team is made of stronger stuff mentally and motivation isn’t a problem for us. It’s time to put the record straight.”