Basketball On The Internet.

BASKETBALL followers who truly follow the game in Australia will not be greatly surprised to learn Basketball Australia’s High Performance manager Steven Icke has resigned.

BA is expected to make an announcement regarding the future of the High Performance and National Teams General Manager’s role next week.

Did Icke get the flicke? Or did Steve just get even?

Who knows? Who cares?

He is no longer in the role and life rolls on.

I am only hoping this item guarantees me one of Kristina Keneally’s “high performance calendars” in my Christmas stocking.

SPEAKING of KK – no Kennedy Kereama, this not about you – my (e)mail is the BA CEO spoke very well at the weekend meeting with SEABL clubs to discuss their proposed marriage.

I also hear Scott Derwin, however, may have been pre-occupied, obviously doing other work on his iPad during the meeting.

I believe SEABL will reconvene in February – or perhaps late March/early April - as clubs called for this to be the last meeting where the merger would be discussed.

Basketball On The Internet's Player of the Week

THIS gets tougher every week.

No wonder Marc Howard developed gout, an ulcer and what was left of his hair turned a whiter shade of pale. Although I may have just made that up to hide how hard it was coming up with this week’s winner.

The contenders please?

Let’s try Steve Markovic up in Townsville sticking 31 points and a club record for a 40-minute game of eight triples (8-of-11). That also included 5-of-5 in the first quarter, setting up the Crocs’ win over Adelaide.

Then out west, James Ennis had three first-quarter dunks including a gem throw-it-against-the-backboard slam, on his way to 31 points. That was at a wicked 63 per cent.

He also scored the game’s last seven points to give Perth a 95-91 win over NZ, including a massive 3-pointer which sealed the game.

His import running-mate Jermaine Beal added 30 points, also with eight triples.

In Cairns, Jamar Wilson went off for 30 as the Taipans beat Adelaide, sticking 12-of-12 free throws!

In Wollongong, Rotnei Clarke was sensational for 27 points to be the architect of the Hawks’ upset win over Sydney.

And Mustapha Farrakhan hit 9-of-10 for his 20 points for Melbourne in the win over NZ Breakers and also blocked a potential game-winner from CJ Bruton.

But the winner is?

James Ennis.

Let’s give the man his due. He is easily the league’s most enigmatic and exciting player and the BOTI Player of the Week award is looong overdue.

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
Rd 9 James Ennis

THE WNBL will reveal its PotW winner within hours but before it does, let me just quietly remind PLOCH the Magnificent, you have to take in ALL weekend performances. That said, Suzy Batkovic was back to her Batgirl best with 17 and 35-point hauls in wins over Logan, plus 10 and 19 boards. That meant she averaged 26ppg and 14.5rpg, fairly awesome numbers that would be hard to dispute. Of course, Gabrielle Richards was pretty tough as well to get Bendigo across the line against Melbourne with 24 points.

Call me biased but my vote this week would go to Adelaide co-captain Jess Foley. In bed most of the week with ’flu but with her team missing Laura Hodges’ 18ppg and 7.2 rpg, Foley not only led Adelaide with 17 points at 62 per cent but came up with the match-winning basket to beat in-form Sydney in Sydney 63-62. That’s a PotW effort if ever there was one.

 

Reviews

Crocodiles V 36ers (M)

STEVE Markovic hit his first five 3-point attempts in the first quarter, en route to a Townsville record for a 40-minute game with 8-of-11, finishing with 31 points. Josh Pace was equally efficient as Townsville made it two wins in a row with a 98-94 win.

After six straight wins and seven-out-of-eight won by less than six points, Adelaide’s psyche took a dent on this one as the Crocs, after losing centre Russell Hinder early, still had the right answers when the game was there to be won.

Boomers V Spirit (W)

BENDIGO was en route to a rout at the SBC when someone at Melbourne thought perhaps it was time to make some sort of statement against a legit contender.

Suddenly the Boomers rallied to turn this into a contest, Bendigo having to re-focus to get the job done and lucky Gabrielle Richards stayed tuned in for the duration of a 60-55 escape. Richards finished with 24 points and nine rebounds to carry the Spirit to victory.

Wildcats V Breakers (M)

PEOPLE will be talking about James Ennis’ dunk off the backboard for a while but his three-point banker with a one-point lead and just seconds remaining was even more spectacular.

It set up the 95-91 win, The Menace with 31 points and Seal the Deal Beal with 30, including eight three-pointers, the Breakers, however, starting to resemble a defending champion.

Flames V Lightning (W)

WITH Adelaide losing its star performer Laura Hodges pre-game to a hamstring injury and fellow co-captain Jess Foley nobbled by a weeklong bout of the ’flu, Sydney – on a four-win streak – had to start unbackable favorite for this.

Katie-Rae Ebzery gave it the lead 62-61 with nine seconds left but that left Foley just enough time to score the winner in a 63-62 Lightning success they will sing about around campfires for centuries to come.

Hawks V Kings (M)

IT’S too late after the fact for Kings icons to talk about the intensity of any intrastate match-up with the Hawks. Come to The Sandpit prepared to play hard or get beaten.

Rotnei Clarke’s 27 points was the big difference in Wollongong’s 73-69 win, though Laz’s return, Kevin Tiggs dunk over AJ Ogilvy and Sydney’s all-time club low of three offensive rebounds – and two were off made free throws I am unreliably informed – all added up to Hawks hilarity.

Thunder V Fire (W)

THEY kept the skylights shut and Townsville, despite the absence of coach Chris Lucas (in Adelaide after a family bereavement) rained on Logan’s parade 80-63.

As it turned out, the Fire didn’t need that 9-0 start carried over from the previous wash-out, their 25-16 quarter-time lead coincidentally by nine anyway. Batgirl showed some form as Townsville moved into the top three.

 

Taipans V 36ers (M)

JAMAR Wilson promised to raise the level of his play and with it, the standard of his team and he was true to his word with 30 points in a comprehensive 98-78 Cairns victory.

Alex Loughton also bobbed up with a strong showing as the Taipans turned a five-point lead at the last break into a rout, ending a seven-match losing skid which started against the 36ers, with a win to give their supporters hope again.

Waves V Rangers (W)

WEST Coast achieved its new weekly goal – no quarter with single-digit scoring returns, 10 its worst period this time – in a 58-79 loss to Dandenong.

Jenna O’Hea led five Rangers in double figures as West Coast made a contest of it for most of the first half. Let’s applaud that as progress.

 

Tigers V Breakers (M)

MARK Worthington came to play with far less of the pleading to officials and far more of the traditional Wortho hard-a$$, while Mustapha Farrakhan was almost perfect from the floor, hitting his first nine shots and going 9-of-10 for his career-best 20 points.

New Zealand hung tough in a contest worthy of its billing, Gary Wilkinson finding some of his lost game and CJ Bruton with a shot to win it which Farrakhan rejected, preserving an 84-82 Tigers victory.

Thunder V Fire (W)

SUZY Batkovic made a mockery of this as a contest, exposing Logan as a doughnut as she stormed to a 35-point, 19-rebound double in a 95-71 Townsville win.

The win started to underpin the Fire’s residence in the top four while also leaving no doubt the best Logan can do now is play the role of spoiler.

BEEF of the WEEK

TELEVISION on every platform was at new levels of irresponsibility this weekend, from ONE-Ten to the ABC to NBLTV.

Truly, as a basketball scribe I recognise where our sport still currently ranks in the great pantheon of “sports as entertainment” in this great country of ours.

But it can only do more than just poke its head out like some frightened turtle if the people responsible for bringing it to a wider audience actually have some responsibility to what they are doing.

Let’s start at the NBLTV game between Townsville and Adelaide where one of the callers – Trevor Roberts, I think – all night could not consistently get Jarrid Frye correct. He wanted to make him “Friar” all night.

Just irresponsible. Who does he answer to for doing that throughout the game?

Nobody.

As for the remark: “The Crocodiles are using 20 to 25 seconds to get a good shot off”, well, I’d suggest 25 seconds might just be a fraction too long, no?

I like Tony Ronaldson so I’m not even going to reprint here what he said in his opening intro of the ONE game between Perth-NZ, such was its degree of abject incoherence.

I’m not sure it was even English. I felt for him, winding himself into a corner, as I felt for Lachy Reid watching it unfold and knowing he couldn’t really save him.

But then Lachy comes up with James Ennis – after his throw-off-the-backboard slam dunk – doing that “four or five times a game”.  Really?

Come Saturday afternoon and the ever-effervescent Darren Boyd steps over the line – actually, LEAPS over the precipice of credibility with his throwaway statement: “Phil Brown, one of the greatest coaches in Australian history.”

Say WTF?

For a start, I’m not sure how many coaches actually have made any profound or lasting impact on “Australian history” so let’s presume Rush-of-Blood-Boyd meant in Australian “sporting” history perhaps.

So is he up there with Ron Barassi? Wayne Bennett? Malcolm Blight? Percy Cerutty? Harry Hopman? Mick Malthouse? Leigh Matthews? Jock McHale? Jack Oatey? David Parkin? Norma Plummer? Kevin Sheedy? Franz Stampfl? Charlie Walsh? … to rattle off a few?

No? Then maybe Censor-Free-Darren meant Australian “basketball” history perhaps? Which would have included Eric Erkens, Keith Miller, Ken Watson, John Raschke, Lindsay Gaze, Adrian Hurley, Barry Barnes, Phil Smyth, Brian Goorjian, Brett Brown, Andre Lemanis … to rattle off a few.

Still no? Then perhaps Dashing Darren meant Australian “women’s basketball” history maybe? So that would have Phil there among Merv Harris, Tony Gaze, Brendan Flynn, Robbie Cadee, Tom Maher, Jan Stirling, Carrie Graf and Brendan Joyce?

Well maybe Phil Brown might rate among the greatest coaches in Australian “WNBL” history?

Now let’s not make this about Phil because he is a two-time WNBL Coach of the Year – though there are a few of those – and took an AIS team to the league Championship.

Yes, that side DID boast Lauren Jackson, Suzy Batkovic, Penny Taylor, Kristen Veal and a handful of other household names, but they were still young and only on the threshold of greatness.

Any Championship is a great achievement and so too is the fact Phil has had a hand in the development of many of our finest young players. He also has run national junior teams and been an Olympic assistant coach.

But does that put him ahead of Gary Fox? Of Alex Palazzolo? Charlie Wilson? Charlie Ammitt? Cal Bruton? Jerry Lee? Ken Cole? Brian Kerle? Bob Turner?

“One of the greatest coaches in Australian history”?

Goodness gracious Darren. Calm down.

The Cairns-Adelaide NBLTV game broke down and froze, which should really be completely unacceptable for a commodity which is being paid for. The fact it happened during the last quarter just made it even more infuriating.

(Good thing we had ever-reliable NBL Stats to work with, right? Wrong.)
 
I could go on – remember it was Steve Burgundy covering the Melbourne-NZ game on Sunday – but the seeming irresponsibility with which commentators and networks treat our sport leaves you knowing that even if/when someone reads this, they’ll just shrug and say: “Hell man, it’s only basketball.”

And that’s why the problem exists in the first place.

 

BIGGEST WINNERS/LOSERS

IT was extremely tough to determine just which team was the round’s biggest winner. Cases can be made for Townsville and/or Cairns in both taking out Adelaide, or for Melbourne in winning a thriller over New Zealand. But for mine, Wollongong gets the gong for stopping Sydney dead in its tracks at a time when the Kings were trying to get on a roll.

THE biggest loser most likely looked like Adelaide but considering the twin road reversals didn’t even cost the 36ers their second position, it has to be NZ Breakers. New Zealand went within a late Ennis triple and a Mustapha Farrakhan blocked shot of going 2-0 instead of 0-2, but that 0-2 now makes its record 4-8 and the road back to the playoffs just that much more perilous.

LIKED Townsville for the WNBL’s biggest winner, considering it had to deal with back-to-back Logan runs. But the biggest winner this round goes to Adelaide, down Hodges, Talbot, with Foley ’flu-ridden yet the Lightning pulled out a 63-62 road-win over in-form Sydney.

BY logical extension, Sydney was the biggest loser. To have a four-win streak going, be challenging for the top four and to catch Adelaide under such adversity, then lose? Well, there goes the three-year extension on Karen Dalton’s lifetime coaching contract.

 

Online

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/nbl-round-rebound-9-replay-boti-nagys-blog/story-fnii09gt-1226778660576

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/the-adelaide-36ers-completely-dropped-the-ball-on-their-north-queensland-trip/story-fnii09ki-1226778141583

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/adelaide-36ers-lose-to-resurgent-cairns-taipans-by-20-points-in-disastrous-queensland-visit/story-fnii09ki-1226777928107

 

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 also suspects BA is introducing a new NBL video-game and James Ennis’ off-the-backboard-dunk was some kind of advance marketing conspiracy.

 

PPS

FOR old times’ sake… AN Englishman, a South African and a Kiwi walk in to a bar. The barman looks up from where he is cleaning glasses, stares at them and says: “Good Lordy. It's the English cricket team!”