QABL weekend wrap

Yes, I have been VERY slack with blogging over the last week. It is the off-season, but I'll try and make up for it over the next few days.

Starting with a quick wrap of the QABL games on the weekend. Not a good weekend for the Brisbane teams with the Northside Wizards dropping both their games on the extremely tough far north Queensland roadtrip and the Brisbane Capitals losing one and winning one on the road.

The Wizards were always going to find it hard taking on two of the top five teams on the road. Game 1 was their chance to steal a win but they went down 119 - 131 verse the Townsville Heat. For the Heat it was a pair of young Crocs that did the damage, Michael Cedar with 36 points (including 8 triples), 7 boards and Cameron Tovey with 21 points (including a surprisingly good 5 of 6 from the line), 16 boards. For the Wizards, Cameron Tragardh had 45 points, 8 boards and Tim Coenraad had 28 points, 7 boards, 6 assists. Adam Gibson didn't make the roadtrip but Josh Darragh filled in nicely with 19 points, 6 boards, 5 assists.

Against the league leading Cairns Marlins, the Wizards went down 89 - 108. For the Marlins, Kerry Williams led the way with 31 points, Aaron Grabau had 23 points, 10 boards and Dean Brebner had 23 points, 6 boards. For the Wizards, Tragardh was "restricted" to just 35 points, 9 boards and Coenraad had 20 points, 7 boards.

The Wizards will looking to bounce back next weekend when they host the second place Rockhampton Rockets at my old stomping ground, the Boondall Sports Centre.

Crocs vs Blaze

I made the trip down the coast today to see the Townsville Crocs take on the Gold Coast Blaze, my 2nd NBL game this season. The Blaze have been playing better over the last month (since I saw them get spanked by the Breakers) but I wasn't expecting too much. Townsville have also been very up and down with their form this season so it was going to be a case of which Crocs team showed up.

I knew there wouldn't be too much of a crowd so I figured there'd be no problem getting tickets at the game. Obviously a few people thought the same thing as there was a fair queue waiting to get tickets. GC is obviously like LA, very casual and fans wander in to the venue well after tip-off as there were plenty of people after us in the line and we missed the opening 2 minutes.

Townsville looked like they wanted the game more and seemed to always have it control. Like their season, they had spurts where they played well and time when they didn't ... inconsistent. Their defence wasn't great but they were active and they showed hustle.

Corey Williams (25 points) seemed quiet early but really came in to his own in the second quarter. Cameron Tovey was very active and Rosell Ellis did what he always does (work hard, board and provide a presence inside). I was pleased to see John Rillie hit his first two attempts from downtown and he did cool down but continued to play well.

For the Blaze, James Harvey (27 points) was dangerous and heated up in the second half. Luke Whitehead was active and tried hard. Justin Bowen got his numbers but you didn't really notice him. Maybe that's because he was doing more of the ball-handling rather than being a target or main option in the offence. At times the Blaze "offence" looked horrible and unorganised.

Haven't seen the numbers from the game yet so I could be missing a few producers but that's the read I got from watching. Final score Crocs 105 Blaze 88.