Week 8 - Derby Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

This is the week that the make up games are played for the A's, B's and Lady Reds. I have updated the schedules on the website and the stats are up to date.

Think that's it - if you are in town on Thursday night this week I have a gig at The Exeter on Rundle Street. I will be playing some of my songs from 9pm (be on for about 40 minutes). Oh ... did you hear that Orks, Jono and Crawf are starting a metal/crabcore band? I think they should be called Self Orken ... sounds satisfying.

To the reports:
A's (7-0) v B's (4-3) - I saw a few minutes of the game so I will create some dot points.

• Where are Hobbs and Tauny?
• Someone said "wow Corey is a lot thicker than Orks".
• Kartik made a nice spin move on the break for 2
• Lachie blocked Corey
• Phil made 2 long jumpers both with a foot on the line
• Palky went out for beers when the score was 12-4
• Palky came back and the A's were up 20.
• Phil made a crazy fadeway on the break - from my angle it looked like it grazed the edge backboard and went on an odd angle and went in.
• Orks got a big block on a 3 point attempt went down and missed a dunk - get the defibriultor - or do these action cancel each other out
• Lachy got a tech and fouled out ... removed shirt
• Phil made an awesome step through - he can get through crazy seems in D like no one else.
• A's win 40-25. A's - Phil 17, Orks 10, Jack 5. B's - Kartik 11, Jono 5, Manner and Crawf 4. 

C's (6-2) v D's (5-2) - Round 8 we had the dance with your sister round again, playing against the Ds. The Ds are at the top of the ladder at the moment and are really demolishing some teams. We went in with the same tactics as last time, don’t give up open threes. The first half was closely contested, early on Hendo got to the line, to which Palky could be heard saying “don’t worry teh C's can't shoot free throws”. 2/2 cheers Palky. Defence on both ends was the real winner, with contested shots being the best that was available at both ends. The Cs went in at half time up 15-13. The second half belonged to the Cs, with the tight defence even tighter and managing to get some good open looks. G hit 3 3’s at the start of the 2nd half to give the Cs a double digit lead. Our offense flowed for the rest of the half and we refused to give them any 2nd shots, outscoring the Ds 26-8 in the 2nd. Cs won 41-22. It also has to be noted that this is the first game where we have shot >50% from the line, 8/13 61.5%. Top scorers for the Cs were G with 12 and Marine with 11. Top scorers for the D's were Stu and Kobe with 6.

C's (6-2) v Southwest A - The round 6 makeup game we were against Southwest Baptist. With both teams already playing and having a win we weren’t sure how much either would have left in the tank. We got out to an early 8-2 lead in the first half with G hitting 2 3s. After that our offense was faltering and our D wasn’t keeping them off the scoreboard. The went on a 14-6 run and we were down at half time 14-16. The first 5 minutes was more of the same with our 3-2 letting them get to the hoop to easily. BB called a timeout and the switch to man was made. This had the effect of lifting our intensity at both ends of the floor with G and Madman getting hot for the rest of the game. We kept making the stops and getting buckets when we needed to keep a nice buffer to close out the game. Unfortunately our good free throw shooting couldn’t continue and we went 3/12 25%. Top scorers were G with 17 and Madman with 7, somehow getting credited with a 16 foot 3.

E's (7-1) v F's (4-3) - On paper, the E's we going in understrength - Max and Cam away, Brad out with an ankle injury.  Mike also attempted to join the Scouts for a Jamboree at Adelaide Arena, but realising he had worn his bball uniform by accident, managed to join the team towards the end of the first half at Marion. This paved the way for Foo and Dillon Hayden (our ring in from the G's) to step into the spot-light. With 5 gusting 6 E's scrambling against x9 F's, we did well to score on transition as well as against a prepared defence.  Whilst the F's did a good job of limiting Bubs from his usual domination around the key, they weren't able to cover Dillon and Foo as well.  Both teams struggled equally from the free-throw line, but in the end the E's were able to counter the F's when they gained momentum to come away with the win. Standouts - Foo 11, Dillon X?

G's (3-4) v SPOC D - Just to be different on Derby week, G-Force played a team from outside the club, this time… what, SPOC, again?  Don’t we always play these guys?  Both sides were missing players, SPOC’s D team suiting 5 players against G-Force’s squad of 7, which included special guest player Charlie “Pony” Baker.  Our pre-game briefing was, well, brief, as we anticipated the opposition game plan would be to chuck up rubbish and crash the boards, with the obvious exhortation to box out as we were missing our best rebounders.  The early part of the game saw little in the way of scoring, with both teams struggling to maintain possession, but SPOC took a slight lead. A SPOC time-out gave both teams a chance to regroup, and we resolved to take advantage of SPOC’s sluggish defensive rotations with some quicker ball movement, and run more to take advantage of our numerical superiority.  This strategy paid dividends right from the restart, with some slick passing resulting in an easy bucket to Charlie, and in spite of yet another SPOC timeout to slow the game down, we kept enough momentum to take a 12-10 half-time lead.  The second half was a similar dour struggle to the first, and although the SPOC boys had one sequence where they established a brief dominance on the boards, the G-Force defence stood firm and prevented them from capitalising on their multiple opportunities.  With the margin down to one in the last minute, G-Force controlled the end-game and the boards sufficiently to hold on and win 19-18.  Dillon and Tom both scored 7, Captain James T Kirk scored 3 and Charlie added 2. 

Lady Reds (4-3) v St Casmir A - St Casmir are a good squad and have some good tough players - if the Reds didn't play with enthusasm they would not succeed. The Reds started well with Alicia hitting a couple of 3's and Megan hot some FTs and the stupidest looking side-arm hook/runner from the foul-line. Reds got out to an early lead but St Casmir hit back - they have they best shooter in the league and she started knocking down jumpers from everywhere and St Camsmir were getting into the heart of the D and hitting little jumpers. Wans, Georgie and Alicia were doing a great job on the boards and Georgie started to make some shots inside. Reds up 20-17 at halfime. The 2nd half was a bit of a grind - everytime they started to get away St Casmir came back - Megan made a nice step through move on the break and hit a little jumper, Wans hit a couple of baskets off offensive rebounds, Tracy did the same and Georgie scored inside on back to back plays. The Reds adjusted really well - getting out on the shooters and making less space in the key. They got every defensive board and were able to limit St Casmir to one shot. Alicia hit a crazy tough runner to close it out. Reds won 36-29. Georgie and Alicia had 10 and Megan 8. I felt that St Casmir were going to get on top but the Reds did a great job of digging in and making the necessary adjustements. They are starting to bring it together.

Palky's Super Top Trio - Week 8
3rd - Dan Foo
2nd - Brad Hughes
1st - Phil Harford

Games Times - Week 9.5
Games at Hillcrest

A's v SPOC A @ 1.00pm
A's v Knightsbridge A @ 2.40pm
B's v Oakden A @ 4.20pm
B's v Gateway A @ 5.10pm
C's v Taperoo A @ 3.30pm
D's v SPOC B @ 1.00pm

Games at Marion

E's v Hope A @ 1.50pm
F's v St Peters A @ 3.30pm
Lady Reds v Unley Park A @ 1.00pm
Lady Reds v Dunn A @ 2.40pm

G's BYE