Hoops

WNBL Round 2

16,13,4. Not quite 20 20, but not too bad. K.Griffin.

Really gutsy stuff from the Spirit today. Best game I have ever seen from Ernst.

Quality win by the Spirit. Mentally as well as physically tough today. Tore our defence to shreds.

What was the point of bringing in Teige Morrell as an injury replacement? She played 1 minute.

Didn’t Molloy sign a three yr contract only last year, he always seems to sign at the beginning of the season once games are underway , maybe now that Nelson isn’t there it may be different but thought he still had another year after this

Absolute rubbish live streaming from Townsville , what a joke this league is turning out to be, totally unprofessional media standards as usual

Any news on Langhorne? Saw that Abby Bishop looks to play but no reports on Langhorne. Van Loo expressed her interest in making home court a fortress this season but easier said then done.

Kayo is a good step up from that aspect.

Kayo has all their live content available on demand afterwards.

It's meant to be on Kayo starting from Round 3.
Does Kayo do replays or is it just live?

having games live-stream only is an utter waste of time if they are trying to encourage supporters and coverage, they dont do enough to promote the live stream in the first place and most who dont go to games dont go because they cant get there at that time , so wouldn't having it on a replay system as well be more conducive to getting people watching the game. This was why the NBL1 was so successful, you could watch live stream and replay plus their highlights and all accessible to everyone at no cost, yet they still managed to bring in good crowds into those small stadiums.

What a game last night!

While there were some scrappy moments in the opening half, the second half was nothing but quality, with big shots and plays by both teams, resulting in an OT classic.

Schwaggers was on fire. O'Hea is back to her 'old' self, while Clydesdale came off the bench to provide the spark (and heroics) that the Flyers needed to force OT, before they pulled away in the extra time.

Clearly Marty Clarke has does many things right behind the scenes to earn the respect of his players. They seem to genuinely believe that they can (will?) win every time they step out onto the court, despite previous results.

I also admire Marty's demeanor both during and outside of games. Whatever the reason for his lack of emotiveness, it sets the example for his players not to get too high, or too low during the course of a play, game, or season.

This level of trust in his players and general demeanor has produced some frustrating moments for 36er fans as he generally reacts to in-game issues, rather than taking a proactive approach.

e.g. 6 points up vs. Perth (Cattalini Cup) late in the 4th and allowing play to continue following a Greg Hire trey -> broken offence -> Lische trey -> timeout called by Clarke AFTER blowing the lead...

The more I watch 36er games, the more I believe I see Marty's method to the madness that is often produced on-court.

While I see a system that is -- to the basketball purist in myself -- elegant in theory, and very technically sound, I don't see a system that is designed to exploit the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of our team as well as it should.

Story time:

Prior to the 2012 Olympics, Australia played in a tournament with an exclusive youth-orientated squad, consisting of Greenwood, Cadee, Norton, Blanchfield, Steindl etc. Every other country that participated in the tournament played close to their full squad, as evidenced by an Australia-China grand final where our hopeful future Boomers went up against the likes of Yi Jianlian...

Australia was absolutely dismantled in that game. After watching the opening rounds of the tournament and seeing Australia get away with a glaring weakness through sheer talent, it became too obvious for me to bare against China: these kids were playing in a system which was fundamentally sound, but so rigidly enforced it didn't allow them to exploit their strengths.

Every offensive possession was run through like it was a 5v0 training drill; getting through plenty of passes, cuts and screens until 5 seconds remained on the shot clock and someone was forced to throw up a prayer. They were playing to get through the offence, rather than playing to score.

Sound vaguely familiar?

Marty is clearly a man who understands basketball, but is coaching like he's still at the AIS.

Regarding 'how' and 'why' the current system is flawed is too exhaustive to even begin ranting.

What I propose for NEXT SEASON (it's too late to implement now) is a system similar in concept to that of the Perth Wildcats. Not in the sense that we would run the same offensive sets, defenses or recruit similar personnel, but in the sense that they play a physical, unorthodox style of basketball that -- to the basketball purist in myself -- is ugly to watch at times, but very, VERY effective.

Would this work with the current personnel?

- Weigh is as versatile as NBL players come
- Gibbo and Petrie were built for a physical style of basketball
- DJ and Schenscher (and to some extent, Creek) CANNOT play honest defence, nor as traditional 5's on offence
- Creek would excel in an offence that provides scoring opportunities in transition and off broken plays
- Personally, I think a system that doesn't allow much margin between thinking and acting would accelerate Cadee's growth as a player

Again, going into further detail is just too exhaustive and I'm not getting payed to submit my opinion (which some of you will no doubt be thankful for). I've also cut myself short because it's late and I will keep going if I don't stop myself soooooo this is my (heavily milked) two cents.

In closing: my view has been to give Marty this season to work it out the kinks, and hopefully produce some better results. He has the player's vote of confidence, whether he deserves it or not, so he has mine for now. If he fails to produce for the remainder of this season, we can say that we gave Marty three full seasons to prove his worth, and move on from this era.

Discuss.