Thanks to our week 1 contributors!
Players remember to help out your captains and spread the recap writing load -
I want to hear from the wide spectrum of literary minds this club has to
offer.
SAABL Division 1
A’s v Saints White (Peev and his cronies)
Same match up as the beginning of last year, Reds face up against the
formidable Saints. Arguably the strongest team last year that couldn’t get it
together in the Semi’s (sort of like us).
We came out the gate strong, Brendon hitting a jump shot and Mike
hitting a long 2 to put the Reds up 4-2. Saints went on the offensive and
racked up the next 6 points, drawing 2 fouls on Stuart Brennan early. Not put
off, Brennan returned down the court to drain a trey as the game got back
within a point.
A little back and forth brought the game to 12-14 where the Reds would
only score one more basket in a Saints 2-16 run, 14-30. Trying to keep Reds
relevant in the game, Mike hit back to back triples and found Brendon low on
the baseline for a long 2. Entering the break down 22-35.
2nd half was similar but without the elongated sleep, Mike came out
and drained another 3, also scoring inside with a floater over Kong. Phil got a
tidy reverse layup and Orken did his best to remember what sport he is playing,
gathering 3 fouls in a matter of minutes, “am I not allowed to hip and
shoulder?”.
Brendon did his best to keep the score trickling over with a 3 and a
crafty layup, but it was too late for Reds, even with another 1-on-3 fast break
3 by the captain.
Lost 43-58, but a
game we can very much win with some conditioning and familiarity playing
together.
Likely votes: Mike (16)
and Brendon (12), Phil (6).
SAABL Division 2
B’s v Saints Blue 2 (Ben Bishop and his Merry Men)
The B’s had a tumultuous start before the ball was even tipped off,
warming up on the wrong court and Jon Self arriving late and doing his douchiest
NBA player impersonation with his airpods in as he walked past the Saints bench.
The B’s started the game with a jumbo lineup and it paid dividends
early as they bullied Saints on the offensive glass to race off to a 10-2 lead.
Brandon’s pregame dirty bird proved a secret recipe for success as he hit
three first half triples and sent the Reds into the break with a comfortable 12 point lead.
The second half was a physical, chippy contest as Saints looked to
scrap their way back into the game. A combination of good ball movement in the
half court and a bit of Jon Self bully ball when they switched to man saw us
comfortably get home by 11 for the 49-38 win. Really satisfying win for
the group to start the year with everyone getting on the scoreboard and working
hard in man D. Big things to come and thanks to Cam for sticking around and scoring.
Buckets: Jon Self 18,
Brandon 14, Gus 9
Tech fouls and foul outs: Kara-Moose
1
C’s v Saints White 2
The Cs came up against Saints White in the first game of the season.
The team came out strong and led the entire game. It was a strong team effort
with all scoring and moving the ball well. Darcy had a couple consecutive and
1s to lead the team in scoring, Dylan, Dan and Alex hit 3s and Cam was strong
on the boards the whole game.
Final Score: Reds 48 defeat Saints 18
SAABL Division 3
D’s v Pace and Space
The
All-stars, a rag tag bunch of veterans came up against a well-oiled group in
‘Pace & Space’, almost as old as us, but have played continuously together
for years. All-stars hung around in the first 10-15 mins, Lunny hitting
shots inside and Stu finishing inside and making outside shots. All-stars
with a few too many turnovers and not getting back in D led to too many fast
break opportunities which Pace & Space capitalised on. Their passing
was also able to break down the zone D, giving open shots to their no. 5, who
just didn’t miss (ended up top scoring with 24).
All stars
switched to a man late in the first and continued the second, which stemmed the
open jumpers but unfortunately some more turnovers and not getting back in D
allowed more fast breaks and they stretched the lead.
All-stars
beaten 68-32.
Scorers: Stu with 15, Lunny 10 and Ryan 5.
E’s v Saint Blue 3
The E team this week went up against Saint Peters 3 and came up short
by around 30 points. The team led in scoring by Tim Sibly (11) were got off to
a slow start allowing the opposition to get some easy shots in early. A time
out needed to be called to fix this lack of defense and shut down the run Saints
had been on.
With the late addition of the great Alex Mitchell we were able to
begin our scoring efforts for the night and we were finally on the board. Saint
Peter’s athletic ability was proving to be too much late in the game as they
began to get many second chance scoring points with Ven on the bench. This was
not assisted by the fact that Ollie Fox shot as bad as the Houston Rockets in
Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jox6ggZpxnI&t=64s).
Despite our best effort’s Saints couldn’t miss the basket with most of
their shots falling including an abundance of ‘and 1s’. Overall the game can be
put down to a lack of fitness from the Reds boys after a fun off season and as
a team we will be working on the full four quarter effort.
Final Score: Reds 38 lose to Saints 67
F’s (White 3) vs Taperoo Taps
It was easy to select a starting 5 this week, given that there were
only 5 players in attendance at the first whistle. RT arrived just on the
centre jump to complement Hendo, Trev, Nele, B-Rad and P.W3 Fill-In 1, or as we
know him, G.
The opposition team was Taperoo, a team which most of the longer
serving club players would be familiar with. They had a host of new players
since we last saw them, with only two or three familiar faces. They have
selected pretty well, with youth, height and ball skills all in evidence.
Right from the start it was clear that we would have an uphill battle
on our hands. Truth be known we are probably a SAABL div 4 team, if only the
SAABL had 4 divs!
The final score of 69-37 in their favour could have looked a
lot worse if not for Trev’s 4x3 pointers. Plenty of shots put up which were
close as well. Hendo managed 8 and only complained about / to the refs once,
which I suspect is also a record for him! B-Rad got 6, but could easily have scored more
if things had rolled better. G with 5 in what I believe was his comeback game
from injury. He managed to walk unaided out of the stadium, which was very
pleasing to see.
RoadTrain got 4, including 2 foul shots, one of which was a Jackie
Moon underarm after missing heaps of more conventional shots. Luckily missed
free throw attempts are a stat not kept. Nele got 2 points, which were greatly
appreciated as he threatened to not play at all due to illness.
Personal highlight for me was one of the Taperoo players thinking he
could run through me on the way to the basket. A lesson well learnt for him,
not many people fare well when trying that particular move.
I think we are in for a mixed bag this year. I assume there will be a
few teams that will be closer to our skill / fitness / age combination that
will result in closer games, but I think we could possibly be on the end of a
few beatings as well. Having said that, a full team roster would certainly have
helped today.
MIA Phil Walker, Flair, Caldy. Nele and Hendo missing out on post game
beers, others held true to the team tradition. Also, that is the earliest
timeslot I have played at the Saints court nearest to the window and the sun
coming in was quite a distraction for me. Pretty pointless observation,
certainly not an excuse for performance related issues.
SACBA Central Men 3
Rookie Reds (G’s) v Hubitians C
The weekend saw the debut of the Rookie Reds – a group of
2018 school leavers – and Reggie. Much like watching a giraffe being born, it was a slightly gangly
and uncoordinated start to the game that slowly gained confidence and momentum
as we learned to stand up and walk – or in this case get the feel of men’s
basketball.
Our opponents were the Hubtitans C, a team that (and this
is purely factual) had an average of 10+ years and 20+ kilos on us, but was
also a team with some decent height. This was evident early with the
Hubtitans mopping up everything on the glass with good body position. And
there was a lot coming off the glass, neither team finding their range
early.
We got off to a flier, with the official app showing Steve
somehow scoring off the tip with 20:00 still on the clock, but it became a bit
of an arm-wrestle after that. Noah was driving hard & dropped a trey
to score the next 7 before another Steve bucket and Liam finished on the break
late in the half. We were down 18-17 at the break but starting to wear
out our opponents.
We ran a lot in the 2nd half, Steve hitting the
break after good D and some steals - Reggie having fun getting his hands in and
letting the young guys run. Lachie found his stride as the game went with
some good hustle. Hubtitans hit a lot from under the baskets off the O-boards
or on back door cuts early, but Connor started to flex his muscle in the 2nd,
working his opponents under the ring and forcing errant passes. He took a
heavy hit midway through the 2nd but
like Lazarus, returned to finish the job. We took the lead early in the 2nd half and slowly eked out a small
margin, peaking at 7 with 12 minutes to go. We didn’t score in the last 4
minutes, nor were we always trying to, but showed good control for young guys
(someone told me once they could be impetuous) to use the clock. A
32-29 win.
Scorers:
Noah best with 18, Steve 12, Liam 2.
Special thanks to Nick, Lenny
& Mike and team member Tom who came out to support – Mike also providing
uniforms and taking care of the scoring.
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