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ROUND ABOUT: NBL8/WNBL9
TweetCHRIS Goulding is the NBL’s Player of the Month and Joey Wright the Coach of the Month after steering the 36ers to a 6-0 sweep of November.
Goulding averaged 27 points a game through November to catch the eye of the Player of the Month voting panel.
“Scoring wise this is probably as well as I have played throughout my career but as our record through November shows, that doesn’t always result in wins,” The Unicorn said.
“We’ve lost three in a row now so we need to go back to the drawing board to figure out how we get our season back on track.”
Goulding pipped Gary Ervin by one vote for the November nod but no-one challenged Gary's coach, Wright a unanimous choice after a flawless month.
“November was good. We established a style of play and created an identity for ourselves. It was great to get the wins in the process,” Wright said.
Joey, who does not read his quotes in-season, preferring to wait until the season is done before he reads any media, also said he believed he was the easily most sartorially resplendent coach in the NBL - "year round baby, year round".
"Polo shirts are for polo players man."
He also believes he is the stand-out dancer among NBL coaches.
Just saying.
Basketball On The Internet's Player of the Week
IT was hard to go past our league’s NBA contingent this round when looking at Player of the Week honors.
Perth’s James Ennis was pretty darn special as The Menace swept to a 33-point, 8-rebound game and combined with Seal-the-Deal Beal to sink Cairns in overtime.
Then Sydney’s Sam Young turned in a 27-point, 10-board tour de force to help beat the Tigers in Melbourne.
Both also turned on some of the weekend’s best highlights. And so, drumroll please, hand me the envelope.
This round's BOTI Player of the Week accolade goes to New Zealand power forward Mika Vukona.
Mika had a blinder in an absolutely vital game for the Breakers against Melbourne.
Vukona, the perfect blend of finesse and power, had 14 points at 50 per cent, a season-high 17 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals and a block as New Zealand won by 10 and leapfrogged the Tigers into the top four.
Honorable mention to Marc Howard. Who said this was easy?
PotW Winners
Rd 1 Daniel Johnson
Rd 2 Shawn Redhage
Rd 3 Chris Goulding
Rd 4 Charles Carmouche
Rd 5 Brian Conklin
Rd 6 Gary Ervin
Rd 7 Damian Martin
Rd 8 Mika Vukona
THE WNBL will reveal its PotW winner within hours but before it does, let me just quietly remind whoever it is in the league office – PLOCH, are you listening? – that you have to take in ALL weekend performances. That said, Tess Madgen was impressive in Melbourne’s 1-1 weekend but Kristi Harrower, with 24 points at 56 per cent, 3-4 threes, seven assists, four boards and a steal in the win over Adelaide was my stand-out. Leilani Mitchell had a good one too.
Reviews
Breakers V Tigers (M)
MIKA Vukona was a sensation and Tom Abercrombie had 11 of his 14 points in a last quarter run which secured an 84-74 win and returned the Breakers to the top four.
Melbourne went down fighting but continues to defy the odds and NOT string 40 minutes together, despite appearing to now possess an even spread of talent, scoring, size and efficiency.
Thunder V Waves (W)
ANOTHER round, another massive reversal for West Coast, this time an 84-44 hide-tanning by Logan, 29-9 and 23-4 second and third quarters turning this into another farce.
Tegan Cunningham (19), Laurie Koehn (15), Hanna Zavecz (15) and Emma Langford (12) did as they pleased and not even an hour looking at the remaining schedule forwards, backwards and every which way threw up any games against AIS for the Waves.
36ers V Hawks (M)
ADELAIDE narrowly averted paying the ultimate price for a little complacency as it held out Wollongong 82-81, the scoreline flattered by Oscar Forman’s game-ending triple.
Daniel Johnson, Gary Ervin and Jason Cadee paced the Sixers who consistently built strong leads, only to have Rotnei Clarke, Rhys Martin, Forman, Dave Gruber and Kevin Tiggs bring the Hawks soaring back into calculations. Fortunately for the 36ers, the game was 40 minutes long, not 41.
Spirit V Lightning (W)
SERIOUSLY now, a 24-4 third quarter by Bendigo? That make three times now the Spirit have played Adelaide and, essentially, wiped them out in one period.
First it was the 17-4 final period in Bendigo which sealed game one, then a 26-13 first quarter in Adelaide last week. Adelaide, which scored first after halftime too, mind you, then had to weather 9-0 and 15-0 runs and a further tumble down the ladder to a team in fine form.
Capitals V Flames (W)
ALICIA Poto had a big scoring game for Sydney as the Flames made it 2-0 over Canberra with an 81-68 win, moving to within striking distance of the top four.
Canberra continues to tease and tantalise without winning and sadly, unless it gets on a roll sooner than later, its chances of displacing any of the teams ahead of it will become considerably remote.
Taipans V Wildcats (M)
DEMETRI McCamey came up with the game-saving drive to send this into overtime at 71-71. But once the extension began, Perth’s import duo went to work, James Ennis and Jermaine Beal leading a long-range missile assault which saw Cairns collapse in the face of the bombardment.
All the good work done earlier by Cam Tragardh and Alex Loughton turned to nought as Ennis continued on to a career-best 33-point haul and the Taipans again back at the drawing-board after a seventh straight loss.
Rangers V Boomers (W)
LEILANI Mitchell’s 16-point, 10-assist double had to have her up there among the round’s best performers as the point guard set up Dandenong’s repeat win over Melbourne, this time 72-57.
Dandenong’s 20-9 final period sealed it, Kayla Pedersen with a 10-point, 11-board double. Rebecca Allen’s 24 points and nine boards paced the Boomers who have yet to convince against the WNBL’s top two.
Fire V Waves (W)
MICAELA Cocks had a season-best 22 points as Townsville gave West Coast a 95-67 caning, Rachael McCully celebrating WNBL Life membership with eight assists.
West Coast avoided the customary single-figure quarter – its worst period an 11-point opener – which already set Townsville off on the road to another win and a chance to shore up a top-four position.
Tigers V Kings (M)
FROM 6-11 down at The Cage, Sydney produced a 24-0 run over the first and second quarters to be ahead 30-11 over Melbourne and set up the eventual 67-63 victory.
Scott Morrison and Chris Goulding carried the Tigers who fought back to 62-62 and looked like pinching it at the death. Instead it is back to the think-tank, Sam Young leading the Kings home with 27 points and a late spin move which had even Tigers fans saluting.
Boomers V Lightning (W)
MELBOURNE must have wondered what hit it when new Adelaide import Chay Shegog came off the bench in the first quarter to quickly go 4-of-4 for eight points taking Lightning to a first quarter lead.
But the WNBA centre tired markedly – she flew into Melbourne and joined her Adelaide teammates there – as Tess Madgen took over the contest and the Boomers rattled out to an 85-71 victory.
BEEF of the WEEK
IT has taken a while but on Friday the music at the 36ers’ game finally got up my nose.
It was a little loud and overblown last time out against Perth but the crowd and atmosphere was so electric that night that it didn’t quite intrude as much as Friday.
With the game not reaching any great heights, I guess it was easier to notice the peripherals and the blaring music stood out as crossing the boundary from inciting the fans to blasting over the action.
In Adelaide, the games start with AC/DC TNT, Thunderstruck - that kind of thing - which does a good job of revving the crowd and getting the place full of anticipation. But, um, is there any chance we don’t hear close to the entire songs?
There is, after all, a game going on.
Not sure if the NBL has minimum or maximum standards for music at venues and I am all for it as a means of keeping fans engaged.
I am hip to the fact a “night at the basketball” is an event. But there needs also to be recognition when it is just an intrusion.
Various venues have varying degrees of music blaring. Again. I am all for it. Up to a point.
BIGGEST WINNERS/LOSERS
NEW ZEALAND was this week's big NBL winner, finding the formula for success and sneaking into the top four for the first time this season after taking out the visiting Tigers in Auckland.
MELBOURNE was the biggest loser, again dropping a game at home against a team it will be watching at the thin end of the season as Sydney too makes its run at the playoffs. That makes the season-series 2-0 to the Kings as well, leaving the Tigers with work to do.
DANDENONG’s win over Melbourne established it as the main contender for Bendigo’s crown and made it the WNBL’s biggest winner of the round.
ADELAIDE was the round's biggest loser for the second week in a row, dropping both road games and digging a hole which might become too hard to excavate from unless Chay Shegog is a star.
Online
NBL Referees Manager Mal Cooper got on the front foot today about some of the round's umpiring reverting back to unhappier times.
The story is at the following link. I did see Mal at the 36ers-Hawks game in Adelaide on Friday.
Apparently I appeared to be looking straight at him when he waved to me but when he asked me today if I was just looking him off, I had to say: "I didn't see it. It wasn't my call."
PS
NZ guard Daryl Corletto says the new refereeing style is a deliberate Basketball Australia ploy to stop the Breakers winning a record fourth straight NBL title. DC suspects the return to rotten refereeing everywhere except in the New Zealand-Melbourne game only strongly reinforces his position.
