Pretty sure I saw an ad last night saying NBL on Fox tonight, sio I think that is correct Isaac.

Townsville and Cairns would be my tips. Upsets would not surprise me though at the moment (is the top team winning an upset?).

Jason Smith said last night he is a month away still..

The Injuries/Replacements in the Townsville vs Spirit game are pretty much irrelevant in terms of the outcome of this game. I think it is an interesting match up. Townsville are always hard to beat at home however just got beaten quite convincingly against Perth. They could fire up from this loss and come out pumped to get the win. However, Spirit just lost to the team playing the best team basketball and have had a few good wins lately so their confidence will be up.

I think the Spirit's big's are much better then the small Townsville bigs:

Khazzouh, Knight, Gruber, Rush, Rampton

Vs

Ellis, Hinder, Egan

On the other hand Townsville Guards have a huge dominance:

Williams, Rillie, Robertson, Williamson, Tovey

vs

Low, D.Martin, L.Martin, Dann

I think Rush will be able to contain Williams but I think Rillie will have a big game. Also Robertson, Williamson and possibly Tovey will step up in this game. Due to Townsville having a dominance in the guard position I think that is why the odds are so highly in favour of them. However, the spirit have been playing so good lately so I think the odds should be more closer as it is possible the Spirit could win this one.

My guess is Townsville will win by less then 11 (Tab's line odds on the game). However, if they have a good 3 point night expect to see the margin blown out to 20.

Very good point Isaac, I cannot believe a team like the crocs have not signed Mottram, they desperately need more height and he would be a great fit in that system, they will have no chance in the finals(if make it) without more height.

For those not following the Crocs closely, after releasing Ben Pepper, they more or less have PF Russell Hinder and then not a whole lot of other height. Perhaps Mottram wasn't interested, but surely they would've asked as he's a much stronger player than Susnjara.

I think NZ will win the other game even that it is at Cairns. The reason is because there was some crazy stats which helped Cairns win by ONLY 11. These stats include:

Cairns scoring 41 points from the foul line out of 50 shots (scott Cook with 12 out of 12 I have barely heard of this guy). NZ 14 points out of 16 from the foul line. 41 points vs 14 points.

NZ 37 fouls, Cairns 24. Including Penney, Forman, Boucher all fouling out (Henare with 5) whilst Cairns only had Black foul out.

Cairns had an extra 10 points from turnovers.

Darnell Mee and Dave Thomas found the fountain of Youth water to score 26 and 22 points respectively.

Crosswhite going 9/11 while also getting 5 assist.

Forman and Ronaldson going for a combined total of 5 points on 2/16 shooting in 27 and 36 minutes. They usually get about 23 points combined.

The things going against NZ is this is their first road trip so it will be interesting to see how they go out of their comfort zone. Also Martin Cattalini will be back which will take the pressure of other players having to score. However, this could also work against them as Cairns will give Cat the ball and expect him to do the scoring whilst it is more beneficial for a team to get a variety of scorers as they did in their last game against NZ.

If NZ can stop Cairns getting to the line for easy points I don't think Cairns have enough scoring power. NZ by 10+

does anyone know what the story was with Ben Pepper ? knew the crocs got rid of him but never saw a reasoning for it ?

A bigger story! who believes Isaac doesn't have foxtel... ferrari payments during the financial crisis must be crippling

Herka, was cited as 'personal reasons', possibly a family problem.

Dog 79, over the years I saved up the money that would've otherwise been spent on Foxtel, and put that towards transport instead. I then sponge off Ben Fitz or my parents by watching NBL games at their respective houses.

Seriously - $70+/month to watch more lame TV just for a handful of NBL games!? Instead, catch the odd game at the pub and save the $800/year. A few years of that (combined with the 36ers being poor on the road anyway) and you can almost get the Ferrari serviced or filled up at the station...

He may be going to the USA with Melmeth to make an NBA roster..

Crocs with 2 turnovers in 5 seconds have given Sydney a chance. 102 - 101 Crocs. 7 secs. Missed foul 1 to go Crocs.

50/50 call cost Sydney the win, Crocs by 2.

has anyone got the radio stream for the Breakers game working??

never mind, it's all good now....

Cannot believe the Crocs got so many calls in the last quarter
and still only won by a point..
Gotta love Sydney,
but i wish they were still called the Razorbacks.

Taipans up by 1
87-86 with under 3 mins left in the game

we have OVERTIME!!!!

95-92 cairns are up 2 mins left in Ot Simon Black isnt playing tonight

cairns won 101-92

In four quarters of basketball plus 5 minutes of over time Cairns only got called for 11 fouls!!! That has got to be an NBL record! I dont Believe that is possible. New Zealand got robbed I think!

The Crocs only had 3 points to use!

couldn't fit Mottram or Dench under the points cap

Surely, they must be able to apply to the league and have the points for Mottram and Dench re-assessed. They were cut from Adelaide who finished outside of the 8 last year, had hardly any court time, scored hardly any points and no-one else wants them....

NZ got to the free throw line just 6 times, to Cairns' 34!

Really need to work on that defense if they're getting whistled for it too often.

DJRod - of course. Didn't think of that.

On the foul count, NZ taking 38 attempts from long-range might have limited their chance of causing trouble inside. Probably a case of weighing true-shooting percentage against opportunities to get your opponents in foul trouble, etc - good or bad tactic?

What shocked me the most about this game is that the music at The Swamp NEVER STOPS when the ball is in play. They play music the whole game - and they change songs when the ball changes posession. It is insane - who can you get behind your team when they are blasting bad 90's pop through the speaker system the whole time.

I was listening to when they would stop the music - on free throws and that is it. I couldn't believe it.

Glad I don't watch games up there.

DJRod, your reply?

My son asked me for a ride home, after Woodville training, and he's got Fox but I haven't!
Not having seen an NBL game for a month, that was good.
A few turnovers and silly mistakes, but I loved it.. watching that big young team against a small shooting team.. go right to the last second, enloyed it.

Re: Music at the Swamp...

We have done this since day 1 and OUR fans love it... they clap their hands to the music all night long. A measure of a great night's basketball and entertainment is the redness of your hands!

We call it 'Atmosphere'... you should try it sometime ;)

I have a list of about 120 songs, mixed from very recent music like Just Dance - Lady Gaga to Thank God I'm A Country Boy - John Denver.

AND - it was our throwback night so I concentrated mostly on bad 90's music to fit the night's theme!

Oh and by the way - I don't care what you think because I do what CROC'S FANS like - not anyone else around the league :)

You can keep "Thank God I'm A Country Boy - John Denver" we don't want it here :P

Anyone know where i can see some box scores?
nbl.com.au does not even seem to know that 2 games happened last night.

Aint played country boy yet this year, maybe this week :-)

Re: Music - General rule at sixers games are get the music pumping when the opposition has the ball to drown them out but keep it quiet when the sixers have the ball. Exception being when the sixers are on fire.

I wouldn't believe NBL crowd reports half the time. I remember being told "5,000 or so" for the Slingers first game and then finding out it was probably 800 or fewer while the NBL reported 1,800ish.

For the Spirit game, the NBL and a biased team player reported 1,400ish while fans at the game said it would've been under 800.

Often teams count sold but unused tickets, but would that have accounted for 40% of your seats?

djrod - hey if you think that is what the fans want that is fine ... I just think it is mental - I mean every second the ball was in play there was music blasting - just found it strange.

When the 6ers used to do it I couldn't handle it - especially when the team is down - I want to cheer but when competing with music it is a stuggle.

Ben Fitz

i think last night's scores have just been moved from Live Scores to Match Report box scores. Its not the easiest most consistent web site to find info on. Tis very annoying the way they keep moving stuff around.

And don't get me started on their stats....
Individual match stats show correct info, but then why can't they display that same data aggregated in the team info stats ?!?

Thanks for that. The site says to me the last NBL game played even in the results section was 5 days ago.....

Hey guys I'm realy sorry for that post coming off as aggressive - I honestly didn't mean it ike that but reading it back - it didn't sound right...

all of that was tongue in cheek - that's why I threw in the Country Boy reference :)

MY BAD

We have a rule that a song is played for offense and we score - we keep that song playing because the crowd are into it.

I don't always play 'uptempo' music when we are on D... I throw in a few defense beats - we say 'NO WAY' instead of defense by the way... also some Addams family, if ya happy and ya know it etc

We did try playing nothing on defense and just 'uptempo' on offense but the crowd complained.

It is just what we are used to.

So guys, once again - sorry for my post coming off the wrong way. I am new here and I don't wanna piss people off so soon! :)