Hoops

West Coast Waves Now a National Joke!

Looks like the "National Joke" team just went on National TV and knocked off the National Coach, despite having lost our franchise player for the season earlier this week, and what a sweet, sweet win it was :D

Tune in, Cera77, you'll enjoy Nat's work early on in the game I'm sure.
And no, to answer your earlier question, apparently the Wildcats have zero interest in supporting this team. Even re-tweeting a message for their fans to get down and support the team in their TV game tonight was too big of an ask for their media person today, apparently. Too busy sucking up to literally every other sporting team in the state to spare the 3 seconds it would have taken to give their sister team an easy assist. Poor form.

Not sure what exactly you're disagreeing with there, Local Talent, because I don't have an issue with any of that.
The improvement of Amos with her increased opportunities speaks for itself, though I doubt too many would have an issue with a proven guard like Todhunter coming over to share the PG duties.

At the SG spot you do not just dump Marsh and throw in only rookies (or near-rookies with very little WNBL experience) though. No one here disputes that that would be crazy, right?
Now if you want to ask why we brought Moffatt over then I'm right there with you. I have nothing against her, but she is no better than what we have here and her career is not in the upward trajectory stage, so that backup spot on the roster that she occupies should be someone local... Fieldo, AJ, Gabby. I too would like to see them get more exposure at this level.

But I stand by what I said about the amount of local talent we have historically produced here in WA. Guard-wise, things drop off pretty steeply after Tully. Other than her the best guards to play here were the likes of Timms, Stevens, Fletcher, and more recently Smith & Richards - all of whom were sourced interstate or overseas. The closest would be Ranford (who was promptly grabbed by Dandenong). That's not a comment about who we have here now, that's just a statement of what has happened here historically even through that long stretch in which Perth were one of the top teams going around.

Also, I hope they kick Canberra's butt on the weekend and I think West Coast needs to go to Burton more often early in the game, If she can get her confidence up it will help greatly.

Is there someway in which the Wildcats can throw some support to the Waves just to get them up and running again. I feel for West Coast supporters, I don't think its even about making playoffs but just to enter a team at the start of the season which can make playoffs, just to give fans some hope.
Currently their team has some decent depth but needs a quality tall, like a dominate big, maybe an import like Krista Phillips. Once Smith is back and Mel finds some form the back-court is pretty good with Edmonson comming off the bench which is a good spark. I know it costs $$$$ for players but I think the club will not survive entering the same average team each year.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree about Marsh. Show me a young local SG who is going to benefit from those extra minutes and become a better player in the long term. Until I see one I don't see any value in discarding what we have just because they have been here for several years.

Recruiting-wise, our ability to recruit in ANY season is handicapped by a combination of how far away Perth is, how expensive it is to relocate here compared to how much we can afford to pay players, and on top of that our decade of consistently horrible results doesn't leave us with a great reputation either.

This season we were unusually lucky in being able to add two young local players in Garbin & Burton who look to have bright futures. It's a rare year when that happens though.
Unfortunately Perth is not traditionally a great breeding ground for top women's basketballers, and equally unfortunately there is not the money here to lure in the quality of talent from interstate or overseas that would make us competitive with the playoff-level teams.

Yeah me too, and I'm sure she will. She's still learning the game I think, but size & skills wise she could have a good career in front of her.
Will be a good test for her this week on TV against Canberra, whose forwards have been their most consistent players this season so far.

Marsh has indeed been in poor form this season but she is a capable player, she is one of the few in the team with any amount of experience, and cutting her at this point would be just plain silly IMO. She's a scorer experiencing a slump, which can happen to anyone.
Marsh shoulders a lot of responsibility for the young group around her and that is a lot of pressure to carry when your shots aren't dropping. I'm confident that she'll work her way out of it.

As a West Coast Fan I'm relatively satisfied with this season so far. Unfortunately for us just about every other team has become stronger this season thanks to all the extra imports in the league, meanwhile we sit stagnant over here with our laughable budget trying to compete. But we've gone ok, and would no doubt have done better had our franchise player actually been healthy. That one is just rotten luck for which no one is to blame.
(Harper being injured all season hasn't helped either, and she looked to be in better physical shape too).

Frankly I'd rather be a Waves fan than a Capitals fan today. At least we're not sitting here with a big budget and the national team coach and completely underachieving.