SAABL ROUND 5

   DATES

•     Midseason Pub Crawl: October 3rd (Saturday of Long Weekend)
•     Mid-December beach day at Glenelg (Specific date TBA)
•     Player's Player x Club Lunch 14th of November 
•     End of the Month Drinks @ the Stars 29th of August 6pm

SAABL DIVISION 1

A's

ROUND 5 by Liam

Reds vs The Schvitz 55-51 

After vanquishing Peev on the back of the mighty dragon that is Jang last week, the Reds looked to back it up against the Schvitz. Excited to have a win on the board, the Reds looked to repeat the formula by getting out to a big early lead. 

At 2-0 the Reds considered the early phase of the game complete and gave up a few scores to the Schvitz as the unfamiliar zone D and slow down inside play took some time for the Reds to get used to. Down 5 or 6 as the first quarter wound down, the Reds finally got their volume up on D and found the gaps on offence. 

Multiple 3s from Selfy combined with open inside shots for Aaron and Dario off massive improvements in passing flipped the scoreboard to a comfortable Reds lead at the half. Actually, it was only three points, but it felt a lot bigger…

Such was the improvement in hitting the open high post and picking the right option off that spot, the Schvitz changed their D for the second half. The change up slowed the Reds scoring, but the D stood firm and the Schvitz only hit four shots through the third quarter. 

Slowly, the Reds made their offence click back into gear, again finding the open players to hit shots on clean looks, Brendon and Brandon converting well. 

Throughout the game Jang battled hard against the Schvitz’s primary offensive plan, get the ball to the massive guy who’ll try to push through to the basket. To be fair to them, he converted some really tough looks, Jang made it very hard for him and came out ahead on the day. All the more impressive considering his hangover.

Dario continued to control the game down the stretch. While we let it get tight again, and the Schvitz even got a small lead, we kept our heads. We took the lead back converting some good looks on opposite corners from Rens and Liam and Dario iced the game from the line with two foul shots in the last 30 seconds.

A less controlled win than the previous week, but arguably one to be more proud of – challenged, we responded and got it done.

Points: Dario 15, Jono 12. 

SAABL DIVISION 2/3

B's

ROUND 5 By Gus

Reds vs RAVTASS Leprechauns 62-30

 

The Bs were coming off the back of two tough intra-division losses and needed a steadier to hold onto one of the Red Division playoff spots. We were playing a winless RAVSTASS Leprechauns team, so were well placed, to notch up our 3rd win. The team was missing Noah to injury (who very selfishly chose not to jeopardise his elite ivy-league athletics career for a social game of Saturday basketball…)We started the game switched-on and it quickly turned into a blow-out. One hungry Reds player scored the first 11 points of the game before letting someone elsehave a turn. Finishing with 19 points at the half, that player led the team to a 41-10 half-time lead. The boys put the cues in the rack at half-time and didn’t push the lead too much further finishing with a healthy, percentage boosting 32-point win. Sibs cashed in on his jumpers and at the free-throw line and Phill crashedhe boards hard as per usual. A personal highlight was overhearing one of Phil’s lads proudly boasting about his dad’s point total mid-game. In typical fashion, Phill replied: “Son, I don’t care about the points. It’s about getting back, crashing the boards and releasing to ball to my teammates!” You won’t find a more selfless teammate than big Phill and he makes every team he plays on that much better. 

Points: Gus 21, Sibs 13, Phill 11. 

 SAABL DIVISION 4/5

C's

ROUND 5 by Morgan

Reds vs SPOC 22-26 

Let me tell you a story. A fable we all heard when we were young. The Tortoise the Hare and the drunk drunk Count. Red’s with a roster of nine players started the game well. Karamosh scoring the first points of the game with two points followed by Seb, Harry and Andrew with the same almost as if they were taking turns in a training drill. Next Lachlan hit a free throw. Meanwhile Saints still with 0. Reds defence was superb with Andrew swatting balls away as if he was playing the Dubbo under 9’s from the centre and Harry Playing with perfect defensive fundamentals from the top. it was not until after 15 minutes had passed before saints scored with a pair of free throws. Half time scores 15-2. Not long into half time Reds went to sleep and our over sized roster worked against us also. We just stoped scoring. We just could not get into rhythm with so many subs. We stoped paying attention to the score board to. 15-4 turned into 21-8 then something happened it was 22-18 at the eight min point. Back to 22-16 then 22-14 back to 22-19 clearly the count was off. At this point we paid attention with only a few minutes left. Morgan then hit clutch put back with contact had a free throw to go with it that missed. Score should be 24-19. But to our astonishment 22-24. Reds see this and get very upset. Saints then hit a pair of free throws. Offical scores Red’s 22 Saint’s 26. After discussing with team we had far more points so we get the moral win and the lessons of keep pushing even when winning don’t start coasting. Also to keep a proper eye on the scoring so far we have determined we missed out on at least 7 scored points.

Points: Tidmarsh 6 

D's

ROUND 5 by Mark

Reds vs Adelaide Brothers 32-52

The D's looked good in the first couple of minutes with Cam and Damien both getting early buckets. It didn't last for long though with Adelaide Brothers going on a 12-0 run to go up 13-4 mid way through the first half. Adelaide Brothers were accurate from 3 point range, capitalising on the spacing from the D's zone defence. Damien scored 7 points in the last couple of minutes to keep the D's in touch at half time down 39-21. 

In the second half the D's switched to a man defence to attempt to tighten up on their shooters. Adelaide Brothers responded by running isolation plays however committed charging fouls against the quick feet of Reggie and BB as they attempted to get to the basket. With limited open looks the Adelaide Brothers struggled to score only adding 13 for the half. Unfortunately the D's offensive struggles continued and could only manage to add another 11 points.   

In the end Adelaide Brothers had a comfortable win 52-32. Damien finished with an efficient 18 points. Next game is against near bottom of the ladder Punjab Lions - Jimmy has promised to retire if we don't win - so we may be farewelling him at the Seven Stars on Saturday night!  

 

Points: Damien 18, Cam 6 

E's

ROUND 5 by RT

 Reds vs Punjab Lions 40-45 

It is getting hard to come up with reasons as to why we can’t score in the first 10 minutes of a game, but it happened again. Maybe it is the lack of warm up time. Maybe it is the lack of skills. Whatever the reason, it is always going to be very hard to win a game if you don’t score for a quarter of the time available.

B-Rad finally got our scoring underway with a foul shot going in after 9 and a half minutes of play, bringing their 11 point unanswered run to a halt.

Things actually improved a lot from that point onwards (they could hardly have gotten worse!).

Trev nailed a couple of nice threes, Flair got one to drop as well. Lachie worked his way in for a couple of 2 pointers and Caldy managed one as well.

At half time the scores were tied, then scorer points (thanks Ainoa!) gave us a four point lead going into the second.

Nele started our scoring in the second half with a handy 3 followed a few minutes later by 2 points from Caldy.

Things then went awfully quiet for us for about 8 minutes. These long blocks without scoring really need to be addressed if we are going to move upwards as a team this season.

B-Rad started moving inside (and getting hammered) Trev dropped another 3, RT finally managed to make one stick, but in the end we went down by 5.

Once again the real winner was beers in the car park over the road after the game.

Points: B-Rad 11, Tirrell 9s