As mentioned, I made the trip down the coast for the Gold Coast Blaze's first game against the Townsville Crocodiles. I had organised a date (a girl I went out with a few times last year who lives on the coast) but she was working till later so we didn't end getting to our seats until half way through the first quarter. I haven't been late for a game since before I started working for the Brisbane Bullets and a friend and I had season tickets. We used to often rock up to games at the end of the first or start of the second quarter ... partly because the team was terrible at the time.
Anyway, here are my thoughts from the game:
I was disappointed by the crowd numbers, the stadium was probably only 60 - 65% full
The Brisbane Convention Centre used to be nicknamed The Library, the atmosphere at the Gold Coast Entertainment Centre would probably now have that dishonour
I really noticed the shorter 10 minute quarters, they really seemed to fly
James Harvey (24 points, 9 of 13 from the field) is in very good form early in the season, coming off the work he did in the off-season with Adam Darragh and Shane Heal, not to mention his time touring with the Boomers.
Blaze import Michael Joiner did VERY little during the game
The other Blaze import Ayinde Ubaka had a strong second-half when the Crocs contained Harvey (Ubaka finished with 19 points, 8 assists)
The Crocs have a very balanced scoring attack and if they're hitting from downtown will trouble the opposition
The Blaze will take time to gel and find their chemistry on-court (to be expected with so many personnel changes). They seemed out of sync on both ends of the court at times and struggled to get the ball to the right person (i.e. Harvey)
It was good to see a lot of familiar faces in the crowd. Players wise I saw Thalo Green and Stephen Broom prior to the game and ran in to Adam Darragh afterwards. The "celebrities" in the crowd were Scotty Prince from the Gold Coast Titans, Jamie Wincup (racing car driver) and Bree Amer (Big Brother).
Since there's no action yet in the NBL and the NBA has just started summer league games, it seems appropriate to report on the QABL that is in season at the moment.
One of my friends (Tux) work with Tim Coenraad's mum and so we have taken an interest in how he's been playing since he returned from college in the US. Tim used to be a development player for the Brisbane Bullets and has been putting up good numbers over the last few games for the Northside Wizards.
Looking at one of their boxscores, the Wizards team is STACKED with quality players. Adam Gibson (just back from China with the Boomers), Cameron Tragardh, Tim Coenraad, Shane Davis, Toby Zaremba and Josh Darragh (younger brother of one of our Shooters, Adam Darragh).
While there are a number of "names" on the squad, the star is Cameron Tragardh. Cameron was a development player for the Townsville Crocodiles before joining the Brisbane Bullets briefly. He really came in to his own in '08 when he became one of the main offensive weapons for the Wollongong Hawks and earned himself the Most Improved award for that season.
Tragardh is now definitely a player at the NBL level but in the QABL he is a SUPERSTAR. The numbers he puts up are ridiculous! This season he is averaging a league-leading 42.4 points per game, 14.5 rebounds per game (2nd in the league) and shooting at over 60% from the field. Last month he scored 70 points vs Toowoomba on an amazing 29 of 34 from the field and 12 of 13 from the line. In four other games this season so far he has has broken the 50 point mark!
The knock on Cameron at an NBL level is that he's defensively challenged ... but the name of the game is to outscore your opponent. Tragardh has NO problem doing that!
Its been a few weeks since I've mentioned our Basketball Workshop so here's an update and a brief intro to what its all about.
At the end of last year I went up to Townsville and spent some time with my favourite NBL player John Rillie. John and I spent a few hours putting together some videos that take you step-by-step through everything you need to know to improve your shooting. JR is one of the best shooters the NBL has ever seen, especially from the free-throw line and behind the three-point arc, so naturally these are the main areas we focussed on. We also covered basic shooting technique and form, warming up, bank shots, catching and shooting and much more.
Here's one of the videos from JR:
It took me a while to organise the second player to add to the site, but last month I caught up with ex-Bullet (ex-Razorback and ex-Breakers) Adam Darragh. Adam is now running a basketball excellence program at Varsity College on the Gold Coast and rehabbing from a knee reconstruction. I spent a couple of sessions with Adam and we covered everything a point guard needs to know about shooting a basketball. Like JR, he's also very proficient from the line so we spent some time there as well as working on training drills, shooting off the dribble, creating space to get your shot off, three-point shooting and plenty more. To see part of the interview I did with Adam after our shooting sessions, click here.
For the past few months I've had an opening special for the Workshop of just US$9.95 for an annual membership. Now that I've added all of Adam's videos to the site as well as some basketball shooting articles and a "Best of YouTube" section, the price is going up. If you want to take your game to the next level and dramatically improve your shooting sign up before May 14.
In the Workshop you'll find everything you need to know about how to shoot a basketball properly and exactly what you need to do to become a better player.
You'll gain access to basketball shooting tips, drills and training techniques directly from professional players (such as John and Adam). You'll see them in action talking and walking you through drills that have been proven over and over to be some of the very best ways to improve your basketball shot.
I mentioned a week or so ago that I was heading down the coast to shoot some videos for our Basketball Workshop. After many, many hours spent uploading the videos to youtube, I can now reveal that our next shooter is ....
