Freo, not the way to go
TweetTHANK God Fremantle didn’t win the AFL Grand Final on Saturday.
In what was one of the worst deciders in as long as I can remember, Hawthorn winning was a godsend for footy because the Dockers’ dour, boring yet winning style would have sent the sport into a tailspin.
Copycat coaches would have lined up en masse to embrace Ross Lyon’s philosophy of playing not to lose and watching blithely as the game’s aesthetic features became not only secondary but steadily irrelevant.
It’s almost a shame Brian Goorjian won so many NBL Championships in his pre-Sydney/South days because it led to much the same for basketball in this country.
But I don’t blame Goorj - the most successful coach in NBL history, with daylight to the next man – for the way the game has gone in Australia.
I do blame Mike Dunlap.
The style of basketball first introduced into Australia by Dunlap as a “consulting coach” for Goorjian’s initial Spectres teams, then later the Magic, is at least in part (I think “big” part) to blame for the NBL finding itself in the hole from which it now is trying to emerge.
Goorj was still finding his feet as an NBL coach when Dunlap first started visiting in his off-seasons at Cal-Lutheran, a Division III university where he was coaching the men’s team. It would be hard to find a more brilliant basketball mind than Dunlap’s so it is easy to see how his charismatic approach quickly won disciples, Goorjian right up there.
(The irony is that at that stage, Dunlap had not won anything as a coach so, if you want to be truly cynical {a trait with which I am unfamiliar} you could wonder whether he was trialling his defensive theories and using the NBL as his live guinea pig.)
Once Goorjian embraced a style which involved assistants taking stats for how often opponents were hit, defenders to have a hand-on the offensive player for the full length of the court and other challenges to the rules of basketball, AND his teams became successful, it was inevitable others would follow.
Not even interruptions to Goorj’s run of success by more pristine teams such as the Melbourne Tigers (1993-1997), North Melbourne Giants (1994) and Adelaide 36ers (1998-1999) did much to alter the trend.
Perth Wildcats (1995-2000) already were big and physical and so it went, with more teams trying to fight fire with fire, rather than fighting fire with water.
All that led to was burning the fan base.
So now we’re back to basics, with officials required to get hands off and players required to obey or run up the foul count which will lead to the free throw fest no-one wants to see.
The difference now though is that back in the time-out huddles, smart coaches no longer will be saying: “Keep fouling because they’ll eventually stop calling them” but preaching instead: “Guys, it’s basketball again now – not wrestling, rugby or footy. We are back to playing by the rules.”
Given this has been driven by the clubs which comprise NBL Pty Ltd, coaches will either get on board or be checking the coaching vacancies in the SEABL.
Yes, it is about self-interest but now the officiating team to manage the changes is set, let’s hope that is where NBL Pty Ltd will leave it and allow Messrs Cooper, Mildenhall and Hunt to get on with it.
Then, at some point, maybe some more funds can also be channelled into referee training and development to ensure no team is allowed to revert and take us back to the Dark Ages.
You know, the same place Freo would have taken footy if not for Hawthorn. (And that's from a Dogs and Cats sympathiser.)
OPALS swingman Rachel Jarry is the only Aussie left in the chase for the WNBA title after Erin Phillips (Indiana) and Penny Taylor (Phoenix) were eliminated today in Conference final sweeps by Atlanta and Minnesota respectively.
Particularly annoying Angel McCoughtry led Atlanta to its third WNBA finals spot in four years, with 27 points as the Dream ended the injury-hit Indiana Fever’s hopes of back-to-back titles 67-53.
Atlanta swept the best-of-three Eastern Conference final to set up a WNBA final series against Western Conference champion Minnesota, which swept Phoenix.
Tamika Catchings had 24 points and six rebounds to lead Indiana, which was trying to become the first team to win consecutive titles since Los Angeles in 2001 and 2002.
Phillips, the only Aussie to actually hit the court today, had four points in a shade under 26 minutes.
At Phoenix, Maya Moore scored 27 points and Seimone Augustus had 22 as the Lynx beat the Mercury 72-65 to claim another Western Conference crown, advancing to the Final for the third straight year.
The series starts in Minnesota on Saturday morning, Australian time.
The only slightly-less-annoying-than-McCoughtry guard/forward Diana Taurasi, led Phoenix with 21 points but was 6-of-21 from the floor.
BEN Madgen took another step yesterday toward suiting up on Day One of the NBL season with 9 points and a game-high 5 assists as Sydney beat Wollongong 98-93 in a preseason hitout at the Snakepit.
The Madge played 15:37, up on his time in the previous preseason game against the Hawks while AJ Ogilvy proved to be a point-per-minute-man with 16 in 15:41.
Rotnei Clarke can shoot the sheet out of the ball (or something like that) and had 30 points at 69 per cent, with 5-of-8 threes.
Durrell Summers had 26 points at 50 per cent while for the winners, Charles Carmouche and Brad Hill had 23 apiece.
Cairns’ “forgotten man” Clint Steindl had 25 points, including 7-of-12 threes as the Taipans beat Townsville 96-86, Crocs imports Josh Pace (24) and Brian Conklin (21) leading their scoring.
New Zealand beat Brian Goorjian’s touring Dongguan Leopards 114-93, Tom Abercrombie with 26 points at 75 per cent and Kerron Johnson with 18 points, 9 assists and 6 defensive rebounds.
Donte Greene led the Leopards with 41 points.
I KNOW only yesterday I said I’d hate to be in basketball management at any level because everyone is happy to sink the boot but seriously now – the WNBL website this afternoon was still showing last year’s rosters for several of the nine teams.
Remember, BA no longer has “we’re running the NBL too” to hide behind and the WNBL is its flagship. So to call up the team rosters today and find Molly Lewis, Suzy Batkovic as the first two players on Adelaide Lightning’s roster was disturbing, to say the least.
I mean, The Batgirl has only been gone since the end of last season so BA has had a fair amount of time to revisit team rosters, surely?
I dutifully informed the “powers that be” of the oversight and was quickly informed BA’s digital people were working on it as we cyberspoke.
But at 4pm, nothing had changed for Lightning or West Coast Waves, which also was showing last season’s team.
It made me realise the full saying should be “the powers that be indifferent” and that BA’s good folk had yet to fully extract the digital.
It is, after all, the week the season starts and they have had, at the very least, since the end of the Spring Shield to update the rosters. And it amazes me that for Jenna O’Hea at Dandenong, Rachel Jarry at Melbourne and Lauren King at Sydney, there was no existing photograph of them that could have slotted alongside their personal details.
Bit of effort there for your No.1 competition?
Remind me again why the SEABL wants to be run by BA?