Mixed Bag...Something For Everyone

After another tough loss for the Crocs over the weekend, my creative juices are not flowing at this minute so I have provided a little of everything. Hope you can find something that tickles your fancy.

Caption time again. Most creative caption will win a CD. A firey Brendon Joyce (Blaze coach) has a quiet word to his former assistant coach and now Hawks head coach Eric Cooks after an emotional win on Friday night. See what you can come up with.

Gold Coast Blaze import Luke Whitehead has his fair share of You Tube clips. I have dug up two that show two completely different sides to Whitehead's World.

First up is a very scary fall for Whitehead.


And now for this. I cannot wait for Whitehead to do a video on the Gold Coast and have some of his teammates as extras.


News

- For Sale - One Sydney basketball team. For a cool $200k, you can own 10% of the Sydney Spirit.

- For all of the NBL's Round 9 results click here. (boxscores and recaps)

- All today's boxscores from the NBA. This includes Andrew Bogut getting ejected against the Boston Celtics.

- NCAA boxscores. Check out Aussie Luke Nevill at Utah. He had a monster game today, 28pts and 14rebs. My #10 Zags get an easy win over MSU-Billings.

- ASASpace has a good write up on the Joyces return to the Gong.

- Adelaide 36ers have good win over the Gold Coast Blaze. Now they wait for the return of Julius Hodge.

- South Dragons hard work is paying off.

Joyces Revenge & 1st Import Goooone

Daniel Joyce hit the game winner in the Gong tonight.


- It has been reported that Daniel Joyce has landed the knock out three as the Gold Coast Blaze (2-12) snuck by the Wollongong Hawks (6-6), 111-110.

The Blaze trailed for the majority of the game before Shane Heal, Pero Cameron and finally Joyce hit from long range to get the Blaze their first road win for the season.

Once the game was over Joyce senior gave everyone any earful who cared to get involved. Beside sections of the crowd, Glen Saville and Eric Cooks were a few victims of the rather excited Joyces.

The Gold Coast now travels back home and play the road troubled Adelaide 36ers on Sunday afternoon.

- The NBL has seen its first import sacked this year. Adelaide 36ers have released rookie import Mark Tyndale.

Tyndale was brought in to be a solid contributor for the team but due to injuries to key members (Brett Maher and Brad Davidson) the 36ers feel they need a little more from their import position.

Only having seen Tyndale play a few times I felt he was going to be a good fit for this team. A slasher who seemed to be unselfish and who could be the guy to fill the holes on any given night. He would also be the guy given the tough perimeter defensive assignment.

It was obvious he was not the guy who was going to take over a game, but he was never recruited for this.

Tyndale leaves our shores averaging 13ppg, 6.5rpg and 4apg. Not exactly chopped liver.

- "NBL imports should improve the NBL and the teams. Cal Bruton, James Crawford, Ricky Grace, Lanard Copeland, Darryl McDonald, Rob Rose, Al Green, Scott Fisher and Leroy Loggins got people to games."

"Now we've got Mark Tyndale, Dusty Rychart, David Gruber, Isiah Victor and Rick Rickert. Say no more." If you want to read the rest of The Herald Sun's Grantley Bernard, click here.

Interesting to see that Grantley did not mention any of the current imports playing in Melbourne.

- South Dragon often injured centre Matt Burston praises surgeon and Brian Goorjian for his fast start to the season.

- Steve Carfino all over Eric Cooks like a cheap suit.

- Conner Henry looking for playoff type atmosphere against the Taipans.

- National Team coach Brian Goorjian tells a Melbourne audience that Pat Mills was the best player at the Olympics for the Boomers and Andrew Bogut cannot be expected to shoulder the load internationally.

- "Chairman of the Boards" Mark Davis is conducting a holiday camp over the Christmas break in Adelaide.

You Tube Clip of The Day

MJ loses at his own camp!

Aussie Ballers Overseas & News

Could Brad Newley be swapping this jersey for a Houston Rocket's one in the near future?

Let's take a look at what Aussie ballers are doing elsewhere in the world.

Andrew Bogut - It has been a huge week for the Milwaukee Bucks bigman. First, he faced Shaq early in the week where Shaq-Fu made a SportsCentre highlight out of him.

After dealing with the "Diesel", the next day Bogut had to deal with two fools while conducting his interview for "The OT". His time was much appreciated.

After getting over his career highlight (The OT), Bogut launches his own website. I cannot wait to see some of the video highlights coming, but fans will love the Q & A feature. Send in your question and the two time Olympian will personally answer it.

And to round the week off, Bogut had a lazy 10pts and 17rebs against former NBA MVP Tim Duncan.

Oh, to be in the NBA.

Brad Newley - Newley and his Greek team Panellinios have advanced to the next round of the ULEB Cup. Although Newley's team lost this contest, they defeated the Russian team by 27 on their home court. Having a +3 points differential in the series sees them advance.

Newley has been under the watchful eye of the Houston Rockets. Just a few weekends ago the Rockets had their people in the stands at one of Newley's Greek League games. He made their trip worthwhile as he went to work. He ended the game with 20pts and 10rebs. Here is the boxscore from his last Greek League game, another double double.

Could be interesting times ahead for Newley. If he continues with the form he is showing currently the NBA might just come knocking, otherwise a strong Euroleague team may just become interested in the Aussies services.

David Andersen - Barcelona lose a close one in the Spanish league. He tackles his Euroleague game later today.

Aleks Maric - Quiet week for the former Nebraska Cornhusker. He only hit the court for seven minutes, but managed to foul out.

Daniel Kickett - The former St Mary Gael continues to have a solid season in Spain. Could he be a smokey for the World Champ team in 2010? Latest boxscore.

Wade Helliwell - The big man thrashed around for nine minutes this week. He plays in the Italian league.

Steve Markovic - 'Wombat" got to work on his posterior size this week. He was in the game for a minute.

Other Hoops News

- Brian Goorjian and Kirk Penney take out monthly awards.

- New Bullets in a race against time.

- Cameron Tragardh likes the feeling of winning.

- Boti Nagy with his pearls of wisdom.

- What the New Zealand Breakers will get up to in Townsville?

- Blaze have a danger man when they play the Hawks.

- Brian Goorjian believes his Dragon team has as much talent as his last Kings team.

- Adelaide coach asks for consistency from import Mark Tyndale.

People, you need to fast forward to Corey Williams player segment at the end of this clip. He is wearing black hot pants.

Andrew Bogut Drops By "The OT"

Andrew Bogut hangs with "The OT" boys.


Episode 10 of "The OT" is ready for listening. This week's guest is Australian dual Olympian and Milwaukee Bucks center, Andrew Bogut. As well we discuss all things basketball. It has been a huge week for the sport.

H.O.R.S.E & Crocs Ready To Go

Later today Episode 10 of "The OT" will be released. This week's guest is former NBA #1 draft pick, Andrew Bogut. We ask him questions about the NBA, NBL and his Croatian background. Keep an eye out for it later today.

Just as Corey "Homicide" Williams referred to himself as the "50 Cent" of streetball, I'm the Kanye West of basketball's game called HORSE.

Why is this relevant you ask? Upstart 36ers rookie Aaron Bruce has challenged me to a game of HORSE and he stands no chance in this contest.

This game is all going to be done via YouTube so I'm sure we will both become creative by the end of it all.

Bruce has kicked off the competition with a regulation half court shot. He is obviously just warming up! I will match this shot in my sleep, then I will reply with a gem of my own.

It should be a bit of fun but if there are any punters out there that feel like they have some HORSE game, join the party.



If you are at all tuned in to the Crocs this season you will seen or heard that we have now lost our last four games. This is certainly not a streak to be proud of I also don’t think it is quite time to panic either,…not just yet anyway.

When you take a look at the first two losses in this group, for example, you will see that they came at the hands of Melbourne and New Zealand who are two teams favoured to play for the championship at season’s end. In these two games, we played them tight and it came down to the wire on both occasions.

Our chance for revenge is right around the corner, as we will face both of these teams over the course of the next few weeks. This time it will be on the Crocs home court.

Now our last road trip against the Gold Coast and Perth was definitely not champagne basketball from the Crocs. Any team that goes into the change rooms at the half down twenty plus points is looking at an uphill battle and we came out losers on both occasions. There is no way of sugar coating our performance and there are no bright sides that I can think of.

So now is the time to pull up our bootstraps and find a way out of this mini slump.

We can start this week with training hard and getting off to a good start in Saturday’s game against New Zealand.

Our focus this week has been on getting back to playing good team defense which then should transition us into an open court style on offense. It was this style of play that led us to a solid 4-2 start to the season.

By picking up our defense theoretically should allow our offense room to breathe and gain some momentum. This is in marked contrast to our last two games in which we have allowed the opposition to notch 60 points in the first half.

If we are able to accomplish our defensive goals early in the game against the Breakers and get out to a fast start, it will not take long for the memory of our last four games to move to the back of our minds. The Crocs are notorious for picking it up at home and playing some great basketball and we are hoping that our focused efforts to turn the tables will result in another about face for the club.

Results from around the NBL this season have already indicated it is going to be a close race for one of the coveted playoff positions. Persistence and perseverance may just be the key to getting us there right now.

The majority of our games lie ahead of us. We cannot afford to let our last few weeks’ performances influence the rest of our season.

You can read my Townsville Bulletin article in Wednesday's paper.

News and Results

Michael is a massive fan of "The OT" and the Wildcats. Congrats to Michael, a CD is coming your way. How scared do I look?

I was hoping to blog about something worthwhile tonight but so much is happening in the NBL at the moment I do not want to open my mouth until I have a better take on some situations.

In the meantime I will provide all the results and news from around the league. Enjoy!

Results

Blaze 115-106 Crocs recap
Breakers 86-96 36ers recap
Spirit 80-98 Tigers recap
36ers 70-71 Taipans recap
Perth 115-78 Crocs recap
Tigers 84-86 Breakers recap
Dragons 95-83 Spirit recap

Ladder

News

- According to my coach Trevor Gleeson it will be back to the basics at practice tomorrow.

- Perth import Darnell Hinson is finding his feet out west.

- Import Rod Grizzard believes his Tigers are a little complacent.

- Shane Heal booed as he left the court after being ejected against his old team.

- Wollongong Hawks need cash if they are to remain in the new NBL.

- Adelaide journo Boti Nagy gives us his thoughts on the vote. And don't forget his colourful weekly wrap.

- Cairns feel like their hard fought one point win over Adelaide might just be what the doctor ordered.

- Cats feast on Crocs.

- Cairns CEO makes public appeal.

- Chuck Harmison's Q & A with the Newcastle Herald.

- "The OT's" interview with Corey Williams gets a run at Bounce Mag.

- A blog article on Aussie NBL players who have gone the college route.

- All today's NBA scores.

- Spurs Tony Parker to miss four weeks due to injury.

- AI's first game in a Detroit jersey.

Reminds me of my dunking days!

Back From Perth

It was a rather disastrous week for the Townsville Crocs so once I get back to the land of the living later today, I will fill you in on all things basketball.

Until then, I hope your Monday gets off to a good start.