02 October 2009

NBL Round 2 continues

Round 2 of NBL actions continues tonight with the Gold Coast Breakers hosting Wollongong and Townsville's Crocs lying in wait for Perth.

On the Gold Coast, the Blaze are looking to finish off a game strong and are always a threat with Peter Harvey on the court. The Hawks are anxious to end a three match losing streak against the Breakers and will again need the big bodies inside to produce in support of import Twain McKee. The Mckee/ Harvey on the same court show will be well worth the price of admission. Look for the Hawks to break the hoodoo by a late bucket.

In Townsville, the Wildcats are looking for revenge after being eliminated from last seasons playoffs by the Crocs. The Cats won bot of the regular season match ups last year and are hoping to steal one in Townsville and get their '09-'10 campaign on the right track after last weeks heart breaker. They may want to put in a call to the RSPCA for protection though as I'm am sure Corey "Homicide" Williams has Wildcat on his hit list this week. I will pick the home team in a close one by less than 8.

On Saturday night, the Wildcats finish their tropical double against the Taipans in Cairns. While the local crowd will provide a hostile habitat, look for the Wildcats to post win number one of the season comfortably, say by 12 or more.

The rounds final match sends New Zealand to Adelaide hungry to re-establish themselves as the team to beat after the setback in Melbourne. Simply too much fire power from the visitors, Breakers by 15.

Have an enjoyable weekend of sports and in NRL...I'm a Storm/Dragons fan so Melbourne by 14.

Oh yes it's Ladies night....WNBL season kicks off tonight.

The 2009-2010 WNBL season gets underway tonight with Dandenong hosting Bendigo, Logan hosting the AIS and Sydney visiting Perth.

At Dandenong captain Caitlyn Ryan returns from shoulder problems to lead the charge for the Rangers when they match up with the visiting Spirit. These two always play intense matches with each other so prediction wise, I'll go with the home team in a close one by 3.

The Logan thunder will debut a good sized "Thunder Stick" tonight when Marta Dydek from Poland takes the court against the AIS. All-Rounder Kirsten Veal will be there to keep the lightning in the Tunder attack. I'll go with the Thunder by say 18+ in this one.

In the nights final match up, Perth host the Sydney Flames. The Lynx are looking for improvement this season and are ready to pounce on any visitors who see them as an easy road win. That said, I don't think the Flames will be the first victims this week, Sydney by 8.

The always exciting Saturday afternoon match has the Canberra Capitals defending the home turf against Bulleen. Carrie Graf's squad will be hungry for a positive start to their title defense and features one of the deepest teams in the comp. Bullen will have to settle for using the game to gauge how much work they need to do. I see the title holders winning by 12 or more.

The Ais and Sydney are the weeks "double" teams as the students travel to Townsville where Rohanee Cox and the Fire lie in wait. No happy endings for the AIS here, Townsville by 25 or more. Sydney's Flames will complete their double at Adelaide where they will be in for a tussle with the Link. These teams are fierce rivals and always bring out the best in one another. Can't split them so I'll go with the home standing Link by 2.

If you are near any of the home coursts this weekend, get out and watch some entertianing and exciting basketball action.

While we are on the womens game, here is a story from http://www.basketball.net.au featuring a couple of Aussie ladies going well in the USA.

Opals star as Mercury top Fever

Australia's Penny Taylor played a starring role as her Phoenix Mercury secured a crucial 1-0 lead in the best-of-five WNBA Finals series against Indiana on Wednesday, writes James Dampney for AAP.

In the highest-scoring game in WNBA history, Opals stand-out Taylor scored an equal team-high 23 points in the Mercury's 120-116 overtime victory at the US Airways Center in Phoenix.

Phoenix and Taylor are chasing their second WNBA championship in three seasons and host game two on Friday before the series shifts to Indiana.

Starting Fever point guard and Taylor's Opals teammate Tully Bevilaqua also had a solid night, scoring 14 points and dishing out four assists, but Indiana fell just short of stealing home court advantage in the series.

In a see-sawing encounter that featured 19 lead changes and 13 ties, Indiana's Katie Douglas hit a three-pointer with 7.1 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to force overtime.

But Mercury guard Cappie Pondexter, who matched Taylor's 23-point haul, scored seven points in the extra period to guide Phoenix home.

Douglas led all scorers with 30 points, while teammate Ebony Hoffman stepped up big time with a career-high 27 points.

But they couldn't contain the deep Phoenix line-up, with six Mercury players finishing with double-figure scoring.

Diana Taurasi, who was named league MVP before the game, tallied 22 points and nine boards for the Mercury.

And Taylor kept them in it midway through the game when her teammates had gone cold, hitting 7-of-10 shots from the field overall, including 2-of-3 from three-point territory and 7-of-8 from the free-throw line.

The 2006 world championships MVP also added two boards, two assists and two steals in just over 27 minutes on court.

"I know with Cappie, (Taurasi) and Penny, there is no such thing as pressure," Mercury coach Corey Gaines said.

"They've played in big games their whole life."

The match-up was supposed to be a contrast between Phoenix's high-octane offence and Indiana's vaunted defence, but that didn't eventuate in game one.

"It wasn't the defensive-versus-offensive game people were expecting, clearly," Taylor said.

"Anyone who saw this game could tell you that.

"It was just amazing displays of talent, especially down the stretch."

Prior to this game the league's highest-scoring contest was Phoenix's 111-110 victory over Houston in triple overtime in a regular-season contest back in 2006.

The Mercury and Fever both scored more points than any team previously in league history, with the previous best Phoenix's 115 in an overtime win over Sacramento on June 13 this season.

PHOENIX 120 (Penny Taylor 23, Cappie Pondexter 23, Diana Taurasi 22) btINDIANA 116 (Katie Douglas 30, Ebony Hoffman 27, Tammy Sutton-Brown 19)in overtime at US Airways Arena, Phoenix, Arizona, USA Phoenix leads best-of-five series 1-0. Image courtesy wnba.com

01 October 2009

Tigers ambush the Breakers in Melbourne

Mark Worthington put any worries of health issues aside to lead the Melbourne Tigers to an upset of the visiting New Zealand Breakers in Wednesday nights NBL action.

Worthington tossed in 17 points and snared 9 rebounds as the won the match by a score of 86-81. The match was a game of streaks as the Breakers broke out to an early advantage and led 29-22 at quarter time before a Tiger fight back that closed the gap to a single point by half time.

Melbourne took its first lead of the game early in the second half and held a three point edge at the end of the third quarter. In the fourth stanza, Melbourne stretched the lead to five before The Breakers made a run of their own to lead by one. Later, around half way through the final quarter with the scores knotted at 70 points apiece, Melbourne put together a seven point run to gain control of the match and held on for the final buzzer.

In support of Worthington, Luke Kendall provided 14 points, Nathan Crosswell andDaryl Corletto had 13 points each, Sam Mackinnon had 10 points and Ben Knight snared 9 rebounds.

Tony Ronaldson paced the Breakers with 21 points while Kirk Penney added 16 points and 6 rebounds. Additional support came from Rick Rickert with 12 points and 10 points/9rebounds from Awvee Storey. Reigning Player of the week C.J. Bruton was held to 8 points but did grab 5 boards.

The teams meet again in New Zealand a week from tonight, it should be another classic.

30 September 2009

C.J. Player of the week for Week one, Week two kicks off tonight

New Zealand Breaker C.J. Bruton has been awarded the player of the week for his sizzling week one shooting performance against the Cairns Taipans. For the game C.J. shot 10 of 11 from the field highlighted by a phenomenal 8 from 9 from the land of threes.
Congrats on the big night C.J.

Tonight Bruton will lead the Breakers into Melbourne for a clash with the Tigers. New Zealand could not muster a win from three encounters with the Melbourne crew last season so they will be hungry.

The game tips off at 0730 on Fox Sports so tune in for what should be a barn burner.

From my first prediction of the week, I'll go with the Breakers by 7 or less in a close on.

Tomorrow we will take a look at the rest of Week 2 and the start of the WNBL season.

WNBL Lauches new season

Robyn Maher says WNBL tougher than ever

29.09.09

Robyn Maher was the WNBL’s Special Guest when the elite women’s league launched its 30th season in Bulleen on Tuesday.

Robyn Maher was the WNBL’s Special Guest when the elite women’s league launched its 30th season in Bulleen on Tuesday. Maher, a veteran of six World Championship campaigns and Australia’s most capped women’s basketball player with 374 internationals, amassed 369 WNBL games between 1981 and 2000 and was named Most Valuable Player on two occasions.

But in her words the passion and the determination that the current crop of WNBL players display makes the league a tougher one than she ever played in.

You can watch Robyn’s speech if CLICK HERE

The 2009/10 WNBL season tips off this Friday with Dandenong at home to Bendigo in the first of six games over three days in Round 1.

Reigning Champion Canberra hosts Bulleen on Saturday afternoon in a Grand Final rematch televised on ABC1 at 1:00pm AEST; the ABC proudly continuing as broadcast partner of the WNBL for a record 20th year dating back to 1989.

Brett Phillips, the anchor of www.wnbl.com.au’s new WNBL Radio, emceed the WNBL Launch which will also featured Basketball Australia Chief Executive Larry Sengstock and representatives of all ten WNBL teams.

Adelaide Lightning, Australian Institute of Sport, Bendigo Spirit, Bulleen Boomers, Canberra Capitals, Dandenong Rangers, Logan Thunder, Perth Lynx, Sydney Uni Flames and Townsville Fire will contest the 2009/10 WNBL season.

The WNBL will continue with initiatives connecting the elite women’s league to grassroots level of competition with Round 10 named ‘WNBL Nurtures: Grass Roots Round’.

In support of the Cancer Council, the WNBL’s official charity, Round 4 will be named ‘WNBL Cares: Pink Ribbon Round’ while Round 16 will be named ‘WNBL Cares: Canteen Round’ and will be dedicated to young people living with cancer.

Stay tuned for more videos this week featuring the ten players that represented their clubs at the WNBL launch.

The 2009/10 WNBL – where every second counts.

28 September 2009

Taipans even their ledger with win over Sixers

The Cairns Taipans returned from their less than stellar performance in New Zealand to post a hard fought 86-75 win over Adelaide Saturday night. The game was the last of several exciting contests in the opening round of the '09-'10 NBL season.

The teams were neck and neck through the first half with Cairns going to the locker room up by two. The Sixers were in the middle of a third term hot streak when import John Gilchrist went down with a leg injury. Adelaide held a five point advantage at the time of the injury that was quickly pounced on by the Snakes. Gilchrist made a cameo appearance early in the fourth term and Adelaide surged to a one point lead before Julien "Skip" Mills, Phill Jones and Dusty Rychart combined to score 17 of the final 21 points for the Cairns crew allowing them to pull away for the win.

Cairns were well served with a hard nosed defensive effort on Adelaide star Adam Ballinger who was held to 7 points/7 rebounds.

Taipan leaders were Phill Jones (16 points), Gary Boodnikoff (16 points) Julien "Skip" Mills (16 points), Dusty Rychart (10 points/14 rebounds/6 assists) and Ian Crosswhite (12 points/5 assists). The 14 rebounds by Rychart put his NBL career total over 2000. Gichrist finished with totals of 20 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists with support from Matthew Burston (11 points/15 rebounds) and Jacob Holmes (10 points).

In Round 2, Cairns will host Perth on Saturday night and Adelaide will host the New Zealand Breakers on the same night.

My first round predictions held true to form with only Perth keeping me from a perfect start. There will be more NBL stuff with this weeks round kicking off on Wednesday night.