We've been major in the minor round

Ok boys, so this week is the first week of finals – Semis for some (with the double chance) and Elimination Finals for others. 

I’ve penned a quick wrap-up of Players’ Player, with the final standings, a few thankyous & photos - http://oldredsbasketball.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/players-player-wrap-up.html

It goes without saying that with the strength of our club (look at the group we had Saturday night) it’d be great to see strong support at all the games – who knows, it might be the thing that gets us over the line in a game.  Plan your day - we have games at 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9pm - sounds like a great day & night’s activities to me – and it’ll be good to have us all playing in the same stadium.

Regardless of what happens this week and beyond, we’ve had a great season – but there’s work still to be done.  Congrats to the F’s for their unbeaten run.

Palky made the comment to me that “we finished higher than every Saints team in every grade (except the Bs by 1 point)”.  And remember that this includes our D’s & E’s finishing above their B’s & C’s and our F’s and G’s finishing above their D’s & E’s.  Let’s make the final standings even better.

Game times are here:

Team	Time	Opponent	Adelaide Arena
A’s	6.00pm	Gateway	Court 1
B’s	7.00pm	SPOC A	Court 1
C’s	5.00pm	Unley Park	Court 2
D’s	3.00pm	PAOCBC E’s	Court 1
E’s	3.00pm	PAOCBC D’s	Court 1
F’s	1.00pm	Golden Grove	Court 2
G’s	9.00pm	SPOC D	Court 2
LR	4.00pm	Dunn Uniting	Court 1

Also, just a note that we will have 3 more trainings - 3rd, 10th & 17th Sept - so the last training will be the week leading into the Grand Final games.
 

Cheers

Reggie

 

 

 

To the game reports:

 

A’s – Brighton forfeited this week, so no need for me to wait for a report this week.   

 

B’s – Written by Hillusion (minus Lachy encouraging a collective groan)

B's vs Gateway: After securing a top 4 spot, the B's were lined up to fight for a second chance going into finals. A win would have landed them in second, Leaving PAC A's then B's on the top of the A grade ladder. A loss would drop them to fourth and a game against Saints for the first round of finals. A draw would put them 3rd and play against Gateway for a consecutive week.

The A's came out of the gates shooting tit for tat in a game that saw the scoreline 7-7 early on. Then Gateway's Joel Horskins went crazy hot dropping a total 5 threes (his only input for the game) which saw Gateway take a 26-16 lead at the half. Second half the B's came out to play as they did against Saints weeks earlier. The B's hit the lead momentarily in the second half but it wasn't their day. Gateway pulling ahead to close out second spot 42-34.

 

C’s - report to come

 

D’s – written by Reggie

While it didn’t matter for the final standings, the D’s came out looking for a good hit out against Dunn, who we could see again during the finals if things go our way against the E’s.  It was neck & neck early, Dunn perhaps a little hungrier for the ball.  After one of Dunn’s 4 timeouts for the game (seriously? maybe lay off the durries and you’ll run a game out) we regrouped and chased down more of the loose balls and stopped giving up as many easy boards.  Wildy was busy all game, with 5 in the half.  Lunny & Jono had some good looks and scored their 4 & 6 for the game in the 1^st 20.  Kirkham was also getting some good looks but couldn’t quite get them to drop in the first half, hitting a trey in the 2^nd.  We went into the break down 23-19.  We stayed close early in the second, before a brief lapse saw Dunn pile on a few unanswered points.  While we then went with them for the rest of the game, we couldn’t chase down the margin and lost 40-29, the margin not really reflecting what was a pretty close game for 30+ minutes (probably 35 if not for all the timeouts).  Pritch finished a couple of sweet drives for 4, Krantz battled hard on the boards and Wildy had a cracker, driving well, causing trouble on the break to finish with 10.  I knew Jono was keen to come back on when he kept trying to tell me my 4^th foul was my 5^th * - he was a man of belief I’ll give him credit!  Bring on the derby.

* there was a 4^th foul corrected at halftime

 

E’s – written by someone, was it recorded?  Oh wait, it was Roughie…

In morale boosting scheduling, the last games of the regular season saw the E's line up against the lower end of the NE1 spectrum.  This weeks victims were Slunts C's, which were most probably the C's, but could have been B's - it's hard to tell these days.  E's passing game was close to its best for the season, with good offensive selection early.  Max has finally stopped stepping over the line for max range 2 point jumpers - nailing x4 three's for the game.  Saints just couldn't get anything to drop themselves, with good defensive boards from the E's leading to regular transition.  Saints were also strangly unwilling to stand in front of the wrecking ball during his triple-jump-like drives. 

With 10-15min to go the umpires worked out that the whistle wasn't going to have any effect on the outcome so they threw them away.  Needless to say things got a little untidy, but Max didn't get a T; probably on a giddy high from his three's.  E's FT% still continues to impress with 5/12 made... RJ apparently didn't play, with no fouls or points recorded. Max Power 15, Bubs 10

F’s – written by Browne Dog

The Fs came up against East All Stars with Udit and Phil still recovering from injury.

It became immediately clear from the start that the All Stars has lifted their game since we last met and were running hard on the ball. Their number 5 was a crisp shot and other players were moving the ball well. Our 3-2 was stretched a little and Brad got himself into serious foul trouble, racking up four in the first half.

Stu was firing well and hit a couple of triples and Road Train got a couple of nice ones inside, giving us a five point lead at the half.

The move to a box and one in the second worked wonders. Jay stuck to number 5 like shit to a blanket, denying him any opportunity to score. We started reading their offensive pattern better and stuck to the shooters while letting the others throw brick after brick. Having two of our big guys out gave their big guy a chance to pick up a bunch of boards, putting additional pressure on Road Train. But the rest of the team started crashing more boards in the second and tapping the ball away from their centre. Jay popped a few from the field and we used our timeouts and text book slow play to our advantage, winding down the last five minutes of the game as slowly as possible.

Another great showing from the Fs left us with a final winning margin of 9 (32-23, Jay and Stu 8 each, Road Train 6), and becoming the first PAOCBC club in history to go undefeated in a regular season. This is possibly the result of the superior captain/coach skills possessed by yours truly, but is more likely a result of the fact that we are now playing an incredibly good team game week in, week out. We're wishing our injured guys a speedy recovery so they can be a part of what will be an exciting few weeks of finals.

 

G’s – penned by the Hitman

For our final minor round clash, G-Force faced SPOC’s E grade, in what was a possible preview of the opening round of the NE2/B finals*.  Most of the team arrived early to witness our own E grade give SPOC’s C grade a thorough flogging.  Possibly inspired by this, G-Force’s pre-game talk expressed determination to thwart SPOC’s standard game plan by playing tight D and dominating the boards, and from the opening tip we didn’t just talk the talk, we walked the walk.   Defensively we were extremely active and didn’t allow SPOC to get any good looks at the basket.  SPOC’s only response was to enter fully into the spirit of Church ball and throw up prayers, which we answered by greedily grabbing every defensive rebound.  At the other end we had too many options and kept the scoreboard ticking over, going into half-time leading comfortably 14-2.  Yes, that’s right, 2 points, one single lucky bucket.  The second half began with an extended dry spell, neither team registering a bucket for a full five minutes until SPOC once again got lucky and exactly doubled their score.  This provoked a quick response from G-Force who then dominated the remainder of the half, running out 24-9 winners.  Brendan defeated SPOC single-handedly with 10 points, James, Will and Reid all contributed 4.

[* apparently we will play SPOC D next week instead]

Lady Reds

Apologies girls, Emma did give me a run down on Saturday, I remember that you beat Trinity but I just can’t recall the details! 

Was great to have a few of you there on Saturday night.