Mills Injured & "Homicide" Talks It Up

- Today saw two heavy weights of the West Coast Conference go at it in college basketball. The Aussie sprinkled St Mary's College (featuring Pat Mills) ranked 22 headed up to Spokane, Washington to take on the #20 Gonzaga Bulldogs.

The first half lived up to the game's billing with the Gaels leading at the main break 39-33. However, the turning point of this game may just have been when Mills went down with a wrist injury three minutes before the half.

The Aussie was on fire from long range dropping 6-8 threes. Mills, who ended with 18pts, did not return in the second half as it is believed he has a sprained wrist.

In the second half the Gaels could not keep pace with the Zags scoring as the final scoreline read 69-62 Gonzaga.

Other Aussies involved in the game were point guard Carlin Hughes who was down on his season averages, had 2pts, 3rebs and 3asts.

Little used Ben Allen saw nine minutes of court time.

Mackay born freshman Clint Steindl, was not shy. He got up seven shots in his sixteen minutes but could not connected on any.

Tassie boy Lucas Walker had his best game of the season to date. His nine points and three rebounds were season highs.

I wish Pat a speedy recovery.

You can catch the replay of this game on ESPN Saturday night.

- Mills loves the idea of playing in Spokane. It is an experience.
- St Mary's and it's pipeline of Aussie talent.

- Tomorrow night will probably pull down the curtain on the North Queensland Derby. (Townsville/Cairns for those of you geographically challenged.)

It seems that the Cairns Taipans franchise are pretty much running on fumes at the moment and unless a White Knight answers the call and buys the team, the Snakes become extinct in a few weeks. Quite a shame for a franchise that has been around for 10 years in the national competition and showed promise.

On with the game though. My teammate Corey "Homicide" Williams has questioned Taipans Aaron Grabau's philosophies of the game.

I will let you read the article and draw your own conclusions.

Here's Cairns Taipans coach Mark Beecroft's response.

- Sydney Sausages, anyone?

- Melbourne Tigers make it eight in a row with a workmanlike 113-104 win over the Wollongong Hawks tonight.

- An article on Nathan Jawai's NBA start.

- Is this the best Newley in the game?

1993 NBL Dunk Competition

Some Friday Morning TV

It's Friday and it's raining up here in the 'Ville so I thought a few YouTube highlights would fill in the day.

This first one comes courtesy of Mili and his nerd searching. Does Time Duncan get a bad Gaterade?



This one was a number one play in the States a few days ago. Can this guy fly or was it the boost? (D2 Dunk of the Year!)




The BasketballProfessor has come up with this gem. I like how you are trying to give Aaron Bruce a tip or two. I am waiting Bruce!



Enjoy your Friday.

Jake the Snake will have plenty of time for reading in the very near future.

For the past 18 months, the powers that be within Australian basketball have spent a lot of time and money looking for ways to reinvent and reintroduce a product to the sporting public that will attempt to compete with the upper echelon of sports in Australia.

Late last week these same people released an explanatory memorandum outlining expectations and guidelines for the new National Basketball League which is expected to kick off in October of this year.

Obviously this is not the forum for a point by point analysis. However I can assure you that I have read every word in the official document and I have a few concerns about what lies ahead for our sport.

My primary concern would have to be that we simply have not made enough changes to our current product to justify calling labeling the future league ‘new and improved’.

For instance, the ‘new’ season will start in October and run for 18 weeks which is pretty much what we do now, give or take a week or two each side.

There will be a minimum of eight teams in the ‘new’ competition, each having to demonstrate financial viability as to avoid the mid-season collapses experienced this year by the Cairns Taipans and Sydney Spirit.

Although guaranteed pay is music to a player’s ears, how many of our current franchises will honestly be able to demonstrate the qualifying amount of $1.5 million set out under the guidelines? Will there even be eight teams able to take the first step in the application process financially?

We currently have a ten team competition with the above mentioned Taipans and Spirit under voluntary administration. They are gone. That would seem to leave a very tidy eight teams to make up that minimum figure for next year’s comp.

Not so fast,…rumour has it that the Wollongong Hawks will be shutting up shop at the end of this season. The new bar has been set too high for the Steel City’s ownership group to remain in a national competition and it would appear that our only remaining original NBL member close that chapter of history.

That leaves seven teams. Anyone wanting to fork out the money to make up that eighth spot will, according to the new rules, be made to pay an extra $1 million for a license. (Current teams will have this fee waived.)

Considering the current world economic trends, good luck finding new owners.

The salary cap will be increased to $1.2 million (from about $840K). This sounds great on paper, but I’ve been around long enough to realize that most teams would be spending right around this already. It is just a matter of creative accounting.

Personally, I was amazed to read that both the salary cap and points system will remain in place. I have never been and never will be a believer in the point system. In my opinion, the only thing a point system does is leave some medium to top range players without jobs simply because of an arbitrary number. A properly enforced salary cap should do the job of this point system while keeping the best players employed.

The one thing that I think is fantastic news is that it appears that Fox Sports will show every game every week. If this, in fact, does happen, it will be fantastic exposure for our sport. This type of exposure often leads to increased corporate sponsorship and let’s just hope we see that money trickle down over the course of the next few years.

It is difficult to see something you have invested your working lifetime into struggle. I want nothing more than for the ship to turn around and for Australian Basketball to be reliving its glory days in another five or more years. Will this ‘new league’ be the start of something big? Stay tuned.

You can find my article in Wednesday's edition of the Townsville Bulletin.

For more on this topic, check out the latest edition of "The OT" as we interview Basketball Australia board member Andrew Gaze.

"The OT" Is Here

The latest edition has just dropped. Andrew Gaze is this week's guest. We get to the bottom of why our banners are not allowed in the Adelaide gym, and a special guest drops by late in the show.

Enjoy.

NBL & Overseas News

Is Shaq's recent good form hurting the Suns? Find out below.

Just finished recording the latest (and maybe best) installment of "The OT". So, while DJ Rod has it in the chop shop, catch up on the day's news.

- "I don't think there's certainly anyone we fear coming in here," Adelaide 36ers coach Scott Ninnis told the ABC. Adelaide have the Perth Wildcats coming to town this week.

- "If we played that game a month ago, we lose," Melbourne Tigers Chris Anstey said. "We made a couple of errors down the stretch, but we stuck with it."

You can read the rest of this article courtesy of the Herald Sun, right here.

- "Teams have probably figured us out a little bit, so it's up to us to make the adjustments," says New Zealand Breakers forward Tony Ronaldson. "We've got some counters and things to counter the way they play us now, but we just haven't been executing those too well."

Thanks to News 3 in New Zealand you can read the rest of this article or check out the video footage and see what the Breakers practice facility looks like.

- "Teams of the past that we have had probably would have failed at that and used some excuses, but the guys played outstanding in that last quarter."

Townsville Crocodiles coach Trevor Gleeson talking to the Townsville Bulletin about the Crocs recent win over Wollongong.

- "A lot of mouths to feed,” Steve Nash said. “I’m willing to just feed and feed. But then they get mad at me because they want me to be aggressive. They want me to make big shots down the stretch, so they need me to shoot periodically during the game." Courtesy of Yahoo Sports.

Is the resurgence of Shaquille O'Neal to blame for the Phoenix Suns poor form?

- Former NBA player Jannero Pargo has changed address in Europe, while Stephon Marbury will not budge on his buyout with the Knicks.

- If you been following the progress on Brandon Jenning's experience in Europe you may want to read this. A great read about what really happened.

For those who do not know Jennings, he will be a lottery pick in the NBA Draft his season. He decided not to go to college, but take his game to Europe as this experience would prepare him better for the NBA.

The jury is out on this philosophy.

Josh Smith right over Steve Nash.

Facebook and Basketball News

FACEBOOK. I have finally taken the leap into this world that generates so much talk during our stretching time at practice. I was putting off joining for as long as possible, but I have given in and joined the masses.

Am I sold on it? I'm not sure yet but it has been great to get in contact with people I have not seen or heard from in years.

One thing I have worked out about Facebook though is, once you become "friends" you get caught up in a whole new web of people. This can become interesting stuff in itself.

But I'd just like to share my best experience to date with this cyber tool.

I happen to have a young teammate (let's just call him #6) who has changed his relationship status (one of the 1st questions you get asked when you sign up), quite recently. He has changed his status very recently to "being in a relationship".

This is a big move (and show of affection for the young lady) for any young bloke.

Just casting my mind my back to my youthful days it was quite a step just to tell your "boys" that a particular female had gained girlfriend status, let alone tell the cyber world. Wow, how times have changed.

Since the status change of my Western Australian born teammate, there is a rumour circulating that he met his lovely partner under similar circumstances. (I will seek confirmation of this tomorrow at practice.)


Now to the News

- The Melbourne Tigers extend their winning streak to seven. They defeated the league leading South Dragons in their Australia day clash.

Click here to listen to what Dragons coach Brian Goorjian had to say about his import Danta Smith. D-Day were the words used I believe.

All boxscores from Round 19. LADDER

- The New Year blues continue for the New Zealand Breakers. Having led the competition until the calender ticked over to 2009, the Breakers will be hoping to snap out of their losing (1-5 over past six games) before the playoffs.

The Melbourne Tigers recent surge seems to have put an end to the Breakers hope of finishing in the top 2.

- "Unless you've got a millionaire backer somewhere, you're just not going to have a team, and that's disappointing from a basketball point of view. It's turning into a rich person's only game." Wollongong Hawks Mat Campbell talking to the Illawarra Mercury.

- Cairns Taipans show they have plenty of spirit left.

This week will see the Taipans and their northern rivals the Townsville Crocodiles play for the last time. Should be quite an emotional game here in the "Ville.

- Former four time Olympian and NBL MVP Ray Borner has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.

- Melbourne Tigers import Dave Thomas has his "new" team back ticking on all cylinders.

- The Perth Wildcats have discovered a loophole (there's a surprise) in the NBL rules so Paul Rogers will be right to suit up in the playoffs.

- Canberra Cannons celebrate 30 years of history.

- Former Sydney Spirit owner Greg Evans has sunk more than a basketball team.

- Fellow bloggers, The Sport Count, have come up with a basketball tribute on Australia Day, The NBA's Top 10 Aussie Ballers.

Australia Day

Hope everyone has a great Australia Day. Throw a snag on the barbie and enjoy the company of your friends.

I will be back later today with some basketball related news.

Also, don't forget the top of the table clash between the South Dragons and the Melbourne Tigers can be seen of Fox Sports tonight.