Ipswich Basketball Club’s senior men made a winning start to the NBL Division Two campaign with a comprehensive 78-61 win on the road against a talented Worcester Wolves team.

The visitors, who were without injured starting-point guard Josh Johnson, took a while to get going, but once they found their feet after a four-hour journey, they took advantage of a significant size advantage and left with a double figure win.

Sam Newman was the high man for Ipswich, scoring 29 points, including six three-pointers, to go with 10 rebounds and a five assists. Leigh Greenan set his stall out early as the league’s most dominant big man with an epic 21-point, 18 rebound double-double, while Taner Adu also got it going with 13 points and 11 rebounds.

However, this was much more than a three-man show. Tyme Regent-Bascombe was tasked with shutting down Worcester’s main man – who scored 20 points in the first half.

Regent-Bascombe held the sharp-shooting guard to just seven points in the second half.

Caleb Fuller was again impressive off the bench, while captain Tom Sadler cruised to a solid all-round stat line of four points, eight rebounds and seven assists as Ipswich earned a 17-point win to go top of NBL Division Two after the first game.

“This was a much better performance,” said head coach Nick Drane, who saw Newman and Greenan combine for 50 points and 28 rebounds.

“I said all along that when the league games start, people will see the real Ipswich.

“Leigh and Sam were both outstanding today and when those two are playing at that level we will be tough to beat.”

Drane added: “It was a better performance, but there is still much to improve on.

We shot 38% from the foul line – that’s nothing short of terrible and while I think we moved the ball better, we still gave up too many open shots and could have done a better job of pushing the ball in transition.

“I’m not giving the guys too much praise – its one game.”

Ipswich are back in action on Saturday when they host bogey side Eastside Eagles.

Ipswich need to make sure they keep a clean slate at home early in the season as they aim to establish some dominance in the league.