Hoops

36ers vs Tigers, tonight March 18

"Adelaide by 16 at the end of the third.
Melbourne by 4 at the end of the fourth."

I should have put $$$s down - Sixers were favourites too.

I agree that Gibson is way ahead of Delly at the moment but at least with Delly we would have a go to scorer, if not at first at least in a few seasons. I have watched a bunch of St Mary's games this year and he often takes the team on his back scoring wise.

If we got him we would have a pretty good young group coming up together along with Creek, DJ & Daly.

Clarke might provide some reasonable insight on opposition international players, especially some of the younger guys who will be on the international scene for many years to come. Not that silly imo.

If you're a fan of Eddie and want to see him play in a Sixers uniform again, I reckon you may need to jump on a plane to see him.

Yes, a very intersting quote in this morning's paper. I wonder if the NBL will be making a phone call to Marty Clarke asking just who it might be that he is alluding to?

Young Benny is almost 5 years older than Creek which has allowed him to work on his outside shooting while spending a few seasons in a Division 2 NCAA college team and two and a bit seasons as a pro baller.

I agree wholeheartedly that he needs to improve his shot but he also needs to believe he can hit that shot too. I recall him shooting with much more confidence in his first few games but he seems to have gradually lost confidence.

Sengstock is part of the boys club - the old Nth Melb Giants!

Player Min Pts Reb Ass T/o Stl
Daly(19) 8.3 2.4 .7 .5 .4 .2
Cadee(19) 13.9 3.5 1.9 1.2 1 .1
Creek(18) 16.8 5.7 2.4 .9 1.3 .6
Blanchfld(19)9.6 2.3 1.5 .3 .4 .4
Teys(20) 5.4 2.0 .8 .1 .2 .1

Summary - Daly's numbers are not too much different to Cadee's however on average he's seen substantially less court time per game. Accident aside, Cadee has played for the Boomers and is touted to be a future Boomer. Would it be unfair to expect similar potential for Daly?

Creek statically is the best across the board but on average sees more time than other under 21 players. Blanchfield, currently injured, could be just were as effective (and those who saw his 30 point game at the High Stakes Hoops know he can jump and nail a 3 ball and has potential).

Perhaps the most surprising is the output of Brendan Teys. Well known in SE Queensland, he too has a bright future if provided the opportunity. Like Daly has taken his opportunities.

I would rate Creek the best Under 21 prospect this year because he's been given more opportunity and as such is probably a little bit further (but not much) in his professional career development.

DJ played the game of his life cause he wants to go back to the Tigers & get away from this rabble. Gotta hand it to Clarke, he has a knack of finding a way to lose - but dont sack him, lets promote him to Boomers assistant! Joke!!

Cadee is 19. 20 next month.

So did anyone go to the after-match debrief in the OT bar? Just curious as to what happened? Apologies if it's been discussed and I've missed it somewhere.

as bad as it was to see ballinger get injured it was good seeing dj step up and make use of his court time. Hopefully balls recovers well.

I'll stand corrected on Rhys Carter's sub. Now I can see why Clarke left Shannon out there despite the miserable numbers he ended up having (31:33 played, 1/2 shooting, 6 assists, 3 turnovers in the last), he wanted an experienced guy running the point.

Eddie Shannon is better than what he's showing but I mean, only 2 shots taken in over 31 minutes played from your starting point guard? It doesn't cut it. That's two home games in a row that Corey Williams has made him look second rate. If it wasn't for his assist total he would have been booked for loitering with intent out there last night. He probably held onto the ball longer than any other player on the court yet did almost SFA with it. Its frustrating to watch.

EC is correct re: the Carter sub. I noticed that too... after much carrying on. Cheers Dad ;)

Then DJ is going to be our starting centre at long last. Lets see how he handles it. Hopefully like tonight.

DJ showed tonight what he can do given the time and responsibility of being the focal point of the team.

However, while I am one of the many who are glad he's finally done this regardless of the circumstances (Ballinger's injury and Clarke not subbing him out for the rest of the game. I feared he would change him with Dowdell once or twice but thankfully didn't), lets not get carried away. Tonight was only one game against a team which had, until tonight, only won 1 more game than us all season. I'll be happier if DJ can reproduce tonight's form against the Gold Coast Blaze and the Breakers in Auckland in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully Clarke finally see's what everyone else can and actually starts him and gives him at least 30 minutes on the court.

Ok, we may have lost tonight's game and again been outscored by 10 points in the last period. BUT, tonight at least it wasn't like against Cairns where they seemed to just die in the arse. Tonight they did give it their best but unfortunately, the Tigers were better when it mattered. Benny Lewis's shot was pretty cool under pressure with about 1.0 seconds left on the game clock. Good to hear the crowd show that while not happy with another loss, they were happy with the efforts of players like DJ and Mitch Creek. There were plenty of cheers for them tonight.

Corey Williams once again outplayed Eddie Shannon who has been disappointing IMO. If you see some of the YouTube video's of Eddie playing in Europe you can see why the 36ers signed him. When on form he's a pretty exciting player to watch and he should have been a dominant PG here, but he has only shown glimpses of his Euro form while here. And people complained that Ron Howard's numbers weren't up to the hype.....I remember watching the game we lost to the Blaze in February and wondering why Shannon hardly used Howard who on numerous occasions was left unmarked on the wing yet he continued to hold onto the ball and in the last 5 or 6 seconds try to get the ball to Balls without much success. Howard was left open so often and not used by Shannon that the Blaze in the end really stopped defending him and used the extra player to harass Shannon into mistakes or double team Balls, Holmes and DJ.

Who would I start against the Blaze next up on the Gold Coast? I guess that depends on Ballinger's injury really. What I think Clarke should do is start with Creek, Hill, Holmes, Ballinger and Johnson. With 2 games left, let Mitch Creek and Brad Hill run the offense from the start and see how they handle it. Other than finishing last, which is likely anyway, what have we got to lose? If Balls is out, just move everyone except DJ up one spot and start Shannon at the point. However, what I think Clarke should do (in terms of our starting 5) and what Clarke will do are probably 2 different things. Despite tonight's dominant performance I fear DJ will be back to the bench at the start of the Blaze game and our usual starting 5 will line up.

I'll give Clarke something for tonight's game. At least after his blunder in subbing out Creek who was 3 for 3 from 3 point range with 4:59 left in the 1st (10 seconds after his last 3) while leaving in Shannon who was 0/1 with 2 assists, he seemed to let his on court players get on something of a roll. To me at least there seemed to be a lot less subs tonight.

Damn, did I just type all that crap?

I hope Ballinger is ok and his ankle is not hurt badly.

If i were the 36ers id be tempted to sit him out the last 2 games, and just give Johnson, Holmes, Dowdell some more minutes, to see what they can do and help Johnson build some confidence to carry into next season, and give him a opportunity to be 'the man' on offense and see how desperate we are for a new starting C.

Cheers guys, it sounds like DJ played a really good all-round game. I was expecting to hear that he got a lot of runners in the lane by using his speed and length, but its great to hear he was running the floor, getting himself to the line and scoring every which way.

I wish I'd seen it myself. Could be a great weapon for us next season if we can regularly get him quick shots before the D has set up.

Its also really pleasing that he grabbed all those rebounds and that his direct opponents didn't fill it up either, because those two things have generally been a problem for him this season.

Great to see Johnson play big minutes and do so well. Many of us on here have been saying all season play him 25+ mins per game and see what happens, we wouldnt have finnished any lower on the ladder, and though he can be eratic at times, he can flat out score and he isnt a great defender but he was pretty good tonight imo.

I honestly think if he had played 25+ mins per game he would have got us averages of around 15pts 5 rebounds, and Ballinger would have got similar numbers at pf which would give us around 30 pts 10 rebounds between them, which is way better than we got from our rotations.

I guess thats the positive of Ballinger unfortunatly going down tonight, i hope he is ok, was that it forced Clarke to finally give Johnson some decent minutes, and Johnson proved what he can do.

It would have been performances like that Clarke was predicting in the pre-season which made him recruit Johnson and withdraw the offer to Schenscher.

I hope next game we start something like Johnson, Ballinger (Holmes if Balls is injured), Creek, Carter, Bruce as to me those are the 5 guys id keep next season (maybe Hill aswell) and given the season is dead we may aswell test out and blood those guys more so and i would play Shannon as the back up guard only and consider giving Daly minutes aswell, as Shannon wont be here next season and isnt winning us games so we may aswell play the young guys, who are proving to be our best players anyway.

Say we cant get Schenscher, would people be happy with say recruiting Mottram or Vanderjagt to split the minutes with Johnson, and starting Johnson next year? I would be and would prefer that to an import C personally, and hope/think if Johnson can build on this year he could be one of the best C in the league in the next couple of years, offensivly he is close now.

DJ pretty well did all the things you listed Beantown plus he ran the floor beautifully on the breaks (of which there were many) and played a great game. It seemed to me that he made more of his field goal attempts in the second half because he was getting down the floor and helping finish fast breaks(although he looked tired on the foul line). Was great defensively against both Burston and "Gerry" Helliwell, he made them both look old, slow and clumsy.

The team as a unit worked well keeping Melbourne off the boards (although they let Walker jump over their backs twice for two huge dunk put-backs)

Loco, not so much Freudian as Nostradamian. But I guess it was not all that hard to pick.

Beantown, you identified all the ways DJ scored. Pick and rolls from the foul line, put backs from offensive boards, and hiding behind the backboard as he likes to do. Pretty much had his way from anywhere on court, even knocked down a 3 (but missed one wide open 20 ft jumpshot). Played pretty solid D too.

Another fourth quarter choke job by the looks. The guys confidence has been totally shot the last month.

The only thing I really care about though is that DJ had the game we've been waiting for all season.

My question is, for those who were there, how did he get his points primarily? Was a lot of pick and rolls with him diving to the basket? Lots of drives from the foul line area? Ie, was he using his foot speed to kill Burston and Helliwell? Or (unlikely I'd guess) was he getting a lot of stuff right under the basket? Put backs and traditional post play?

Also, looks like DJ grabbed a lot of rebounds. What was he doing that he normally doesn't? Or was it mainly down to playing a lot minutes?

Last thing, looks like Burston and Helliwell didn't score a lot or grab a lot of rebounds. Can we put this down to an improved defensive effort by DJ, or was it his team-mates helping out, or did the Tigers centres just have a bad night out?

Freudian - my bad ;)

With Ballinger not out there for more than 3 quarters, Melbourne had few answers cos we feed Adam too regularly until of course last quarter.

Memo to Michael Aylan and Benn McDonald, do you know what 3 seconds is? Cos I sure do. Burston and Helliwell lived in the key but no call. Shame!

Eddie Shannon......Well where do i begin. Glad I dont have to watch that again. No movement, poor passing, way too many turnovers and yet, heaps of court time to hold the ball for a good 12 seconds. Your visa is about to expire and thank goodness for that.

Rhys Carter, MAN!..... were you crap tonight after a few 3's. However not all blame can be placed on the players. Fewer rotations this time but still too many considering Melbourne didnt rotate.

Good crowd but I know Woodville Warriors scored 500 free tickets along with other groups that sold them for $10 via Al Green, so numbers would have way less.

As for the year, I am glad its over. If we end up bottom, we deserve it.

Stand outs were DJ and thats all. Corletto got it easy with 14 points first quarter then saw less of it.

Major issue for us in last quarter games is we tend to have only 2 fouls which means we are defenceless allowing them in too many times. They racked up 5 fouls which means they are aggressive. They won, we lost. If I can see it why cant Clarke?

6 months to work out if I really can be bothered putting up with debacle after debacle.

BRING ON FOOTY!

dunkin dan your a retard the internets iq drops by 50% everytime you post

Rhys Carter - three 3pointers in the first 5mins
then rotated out , of course.
Although Bruce hit 2 x 2pointers quickly.
Clarke is in love with Shannon.

lol good call dunkin dan! Watch the game next time idiot

Ballinger must have been injured in the first 2:27 of the game. looking at players' court time, Clarke may have taken Maher's advice.

Ballinger just 2 points & 1 rebound in yet another pathetic display of why he should be fired.

B I G game tonight.


I think the Sixers might just get up for the W against all odds. If you want to see a few guys in Sixers uniform for their last game at the Dome, better get on down.

Adelaide by 16 at the end of the third.
Melbourne by 4 at the end of the fourth.

By the time the Q&A starts upstairs at the OT Bar, I should be well on my way to beer laiden honesty.

In any case...

Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here at the BMC tonight not to mourn the loss of another season, but to celebrate the fact that it has finally been put to rest... although painfully beyond all measure.

It seemed only months ago that the Sixers' 10/11 campaign came into this world - full of hope and promise; a starry eyed vision of enthusiasm and optimism.

But life has its way with all of us to varying degrees. It was not an easy life for this campaign - injuries derailed it for much of its existence. Hopes faded to despair, enthusiasm faded to 'Dude, what the hell?!?'.

But now, as we bury it in the anals of history alongside it's closest of kin, the 09/10 Sixer's season, please take a moment to remember the good times... for it should indeed only take a moment. Like the time Ballinger hit the game winner and tumbled over backwards. Or the week they had the rump steak as the special in the Apollo Bar and bistro.

Let us dry our eyes amidst the wailing and nashing of teeth, for it no longer feels anymore pain. (Well, except for the two road games, but at 1-11 that no longer counts as pain, losses are a given).

Fare thee well - may death hold more reason to cheer for you than life ever did.

Amen.

Melbourne by 4 I reckon...but it will be close in any case. Healthy odds for a Melbourne win IMO.

Im with No Deal, i think we will grab this one because of how bad the last few games have been, and seeing as we have no chance of making finals or anything that is when we tend to win and not so much in the pressure situations. sixers by 5

I think we will get this one. After the last 2 home games the boys should be fired up. 36ers by 7.

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