Wildcats still the team to beat

Going in to the NBL season, which is now only 12 days away from tip-off, the defending Perth Wildcats have shown they are still the team to beat by winning the pre-season Top End Challenge.

A comfortable 20 point win the final against a surprising Cairns Taipans gave them the pre-season title and this is reflected in the current betting odds for the NBL season:

Winner
Perth Wildcats	4.00
Gold Coast Blaze	4.50
New Zealand Breakers	6.50
Townsville Crocodiles	6.50
Melbourne Tigers	9.00
Sydney Kings	12.00
Adelaide 36ers	13.00
Cairns Taipans	15.00
Wollongong Hawks	15.00

I'm not quite sure why the Hawks are at the bottom of the table but what the prices show is that any team could win right now.


National Basketball League: Wildcats down Taipans, win Top End Challenge

October 02, 2010, 03:58 PM AEST
By: Matt McQuade

In front of a big crowd Saturday night at Marrara Indoor Stadium in Darwin, the Perth Wildcats won the 2010 Top End Challenge preseason championship with a dominant 72-52 win over the Cairns Taipans.

Cairns came into the game as decided underdogs after going 1-1 in the preliminary rounds, and weren’t able to put the lie to that status as they were overwhelmed by Perth in a first and third quarter blitzkrieg and never looked like upsetting the 2009/2010 NBL champions, who added the 2010/11 preseason crown to their bulging trophy cabinet.

The Wildcats finished the tournament with a perfect 3-0 record after wins over Adelaide, Melbourne and then Cairns in the final, and there’s little doubt are primed to go back to back and win an unprecedented sixth National Basketball League championship this season.

Five shooters to watch this season

Damn you JR, I had this idea on the weekend but hadn't got around to blogging it yet and then on Monday he releases his "Five I watch with interest". Sort of me reminds me of this.

Anyway, since our blog focusses more on the shooting aspect of the game, its time to have a look at the five shooters to keep an eye on this NBL season. Unlike JR, I didn't have the benefit of seeing any of the new imports in action in Darwin, so I'm going to stick with the local talent.

1. Kirk Penney - NZ Breakers
No surprise here, Kirk led the league in scoring last season and was regularly talked about in our blog. This season, the Breakers have been tipped as the favourites after getting knocked out in the semis last year and if they are to have any hope they'll need Penney to be at the same level as he was last season.

2. James Harvey - Gold Coast Blaze
Harvey (pictured right) had his moments last season but due to injuries missed a number of games. His team wasn't good and his frustration was evident. I know firsthand Harvey has put in plenty of work in the off-season and the experience he got with the Boomers should pay off this year. With a new coach and much better ensemble cast around him, look for Harvey to put up good numbers for the Blaze.

3. Michael Cedar - Townsville Crocs
Cedar had a break-out season of sorts last year. He's been in the league for a number of years but never seen enough minutes to really show what he can do. Last season he got that shot and delivered on a number of occasions. The Crocs cleared out veteran leader John Rillie to make room for the young guards in Michael Cedar and Brad Williamson and if they don't really step up and deliver there will be many disappointed people.

4. Tim Coenraad - Wollongong Hawks
I've mentioned him numerous times this off-season for his play with the Northside Wizards and also his strong start in the Top End Challenge. He might not see consistent minutes in the early rounds so look to him to provide a scoring spark off the bench for the Hawks. He's playing with old friends Rhys Martin and Cameron Tragardh so hopefully their off-court mateship will provide some good on-court chemistry.

5. Nathan Herbert - Adelaide 36'ers
I've rounded out the top 5 with a youngster who showed glimpses of shooting greatness last season. Herbert was a spark-plug off the bench for the champion Dragons but with that club no longer around he finds himself in Adelaide. The 36'ers have lost sharp-shooter Brett Maher and will need Herbert to be a threat from deep. If he gets consistent minutes, Herbert could be a candidate for Most Improved Player.

Now, I'm not saying these are the 5 best shooters in the league but these are 5 that could have a big impact on their team's fortunes. At the moment, I'd say the top 5 shooters in the league are: Kirk Penney, James Harvey, CJ Bruton, Phill Jones and maybe Oscar Forman. The last spot could go to Cedar, Williamson, Crawford, Kendall or a few others.

Let me know what you think of the five shooters to watch or even the my pick as the top five shooters in the league right now.

NBL update

With less than 2 weeks until the NBL season kicks off I'm slowly getting back in to blogging shape after taking much of the month of August off. Other than it being the off-season in the NBA, not yet pre-season in the NBL and generally not much happening in the basketball world, I was selling my unit and moving house and office. Other than the normal fun that comes with moving I had some issues with the phone lines and my ADSL so that took time to get sorted.

Anyway, I'm easing back in to bball mode with some updates about the NBL from the last week or so.

1. From last week's Top End Challenge pre-season tournament in Darwin, here is the vision:
Day 1
Day 2
Adelaide vs Melbourne
Gold Coast vs Wollongong
Townsville vs Breakers
Cairns vs Perth
Day 3
Perth vs Melbourne
Gold Coast vs Townsville
Cairns vs Adelaide
Wollongong vs Breakers

If you missed it, John Rillie was there in a media capacity reporting for the NBL website and tweeting like crazy. He did very well until an errant pass took out his laptop.

Some of his random thoughts:

• All Tournament Team - James Harvey - Gold Coast Blaze- Corey Willimas - Townsville Crocodiles- Kirk Penney - New Zealand Breakers- Tywain McKee - Wollongong Hawks- Cameron Tragardh (MVP) - Wollongong Hawks
• Dillon Boucher makes plays just because he wants it more than the guy he is competing against.
• Tim Coenraad will give the Rookie of the Year Award a nudge this year. Back from the States and just finished playing for the Northside Wizards in the Queensland ABL, this young fellow plays with confidence and a chip on his shoulder. Gordie McLeod has found a good one here.

Good to see Tragardh and Coenraad who we highlighted in the off-season getting some love at the NBL level. We were having e-mail discussions about it last week and most of the boys (Tux & Mitch) are jumping on the Hawks bandwagons. Its tough when you don't have a home team to support ... maybe next year the Brisbane Bullets will be back?

The big news this week was the announcement that NBL superstar Chris Anstey will miss the first half of the season due to hip surgery. It'll be interesting to see how the Tigers perform without Anstey who has been the focus of their team for the last few years. If Sam Mackinnon and Mark Worthington are healthy they should still do well ... but with or without Anstey, they still lack a decent point guard to run the show.

From a basketball shooting perspective, its good to see that Phill (Phull) Jones was named as the captain of the Cairns Taipans team. When he was let go by the Breakers after last season there was a chance he may not get picked up by another team so its great to see him leading the Taipans and he's already in good shooting form so far this pre-season.

Twitter ... I didn't want to, but

I've previously said I would avoid the Twitter fad but today I relented ...

Prompted by a post from John Rillie about his trip to Darwin to follow the Top End Challenge I decided to take the step and sign up. It seems that if you want to stay up to date with what's really happening, especially in the sporting world, Twitter is now a must have. The crew at Dime virtually fill half of their off-season smack with Twitter updates from players.

After "following" JR, I tagged a number of others in the basketball world (both NBL & NBA) to keep up to date with. So far I have:

• Patty Mills
• Kevin Garnett
• Shaq
• Stephen Curry
• Steve Nash
• Mark Cuban
• Andrew Bogut
• Big Joe
• Joe Ingles
• Shawn Marion
• Troy Murphy
• Luke Schenscher
• Chris Webber
• Kevin Durant
  

Speaking of Luke Schenscher, its great to see that he's just signed with the Perth Wildcats instead of heading to Europe. He had a great season and I'm looking forward to seeing him build on that this year.

I'm getting a new mobile within the next week so I'll now make sure I can get one that I can tweet from.

New look NBL website

I noticed yesterday that the NBL has recently released a new look website. I haven't had a good chance to explore through it yet but checking out the OzHoops boards most people seem to like the new look of it but are still somewhat underwhelmed by the content and stats side of it.

I did like the Transaction Tracker they have at the bottom of the page. If you're not sure who's playing for your team this season or if you're trying to find out where someone's gone, that's the place to look.

In other NBL news, the Top End Challenge pre-season tournament gets underway in Darwin tomorrow. The big question is, who the f is the guy in the pic? Why wouldn't you use this opportunity to promote a player rather than a model?