Get there early as the dome as new staff from tonight onwards.

Could be right anon,

D56; should we expect the see bankers at the door?

Anon, of course I was talking about Erik "The Birdman"!! Who else do you think I was talking about - Ryan Kerstin?


I would be over the moon if he suited up tonight, but sadly, I predict that we will suit up someone else and just play an 8 man roster on a 36 degree day in a stadium that has heated up with a game before while the Crocs run their full 10 men rotation and stay fresh.

I wish Erik was in the squad.

I wish we weren't awful.

I hope we stay within 20 points of the Crocs tonight.

You know when a 3m+ fresh water croc gets hold of live meat and goes into that thrashing death role?

Yep.

I seem to recall - this time last year, Burdon came on with 3mins left and shot 3 x threes in a row.
Prior to that got the last minute occassionaly for 1 x 3pointer. Might be close to 3points per minute in NBL. Anyways - we might be a bit more relaxed tonite.
I hope Tez remembers who he is, why he's in it and what part he's supposed to play.

Rob Rose is here! Ron Rose is here! BRAIN EXPLOSION!!! Re-sign him STAT!!!

Comon 6ers hangon!. a 6ers win pretty much gives perth the top spot or at the very worst a top 2 finish. comon 6ers.

Sixers lost by 1.

Worst end-game execution ever. No one wanted to take the shot.

Shocking, shocking last play. Can't really blame Ninnis for this one. Could not believe that Groves had 20 seconds to score at least a point to draw and managed to fluff it that badly. Townsville were in the bonus, he should have gone to his strong suit and driven in hard to at least get the foul. Instead he leaves it til 6 odd seconds left to get himself a horrible 3 point attempt (whilst being heavily guarded) after he was stone cold in the 4th quarter. Terrible execution - should have at least managed free throws to tie or win. UGLY!

We did it! I almost lost faith but at the LAST second the Sixers came thru!!! And lost another unloseable game from 11 points up and Williams fouled out. Way to go 'Tez!!!

IMO, if your professional basketball team doesn't have a structured play to run on the last play of any quarter, the coach shoulders a fair bit of the blame, regardless of whether you can call a time-out. I mean, what are actually they doing at training? It's not like they tried to run something that failed... they just stood around like topiary, not doing anything at all, and then at the last second Tez tried an awful contested 3 which he couldn't even get off, so he bobbled it to Burston for an off-balance fall-away jumper from the top of the key.

But anyway, the good thing is that it's almost over now.

Hereschenes - totally agree

The coach is totally resposible for not having a play for this situation

I believe that Ninnis is signed for nest year - He should do the honourable thing and resign

Start evenly, get ahead then fall away at the end.
Gift the opposition the win in close finishes.
Summary of the season and yes - it is our first wooden spoon.
(Interesting that Tez got about 7rebounds 16points with 9assists, tonite- but seems it's his fault we lost.)

Yeah the end was so horrible its not even funny. As has been our inbound plays the whole year, we just cant get the ball in easy. To make matters worse i was near the croc supporter group and had to listen to them the whole night. Ng has shot very well the last couple of home games and I though Hill was ok tonight, aggressive and not that many erratic plays.

Unbelievable Sixers! Unfreakinbelievable!

Thank Christ we're already out of it and it didn't mean shit. But FFS! I'm gonna have trouble calling any team "Chokers" again after this season. It's not often you have 6 players in double-figures and keep the opposition's two best players out of it and still lose.

Burston: Not as good as his stats suggest IMO. That foul on Rolan at the end there was one of the most stupid and costly plays of the game. He was hurt by the unbelievably shithouse refereeing but still, he wasn't great.

Balls: Solid without dominating. One of those games where I think he should've seen a bit more of the ball.

Herbert: Before this game I would've called him our most composed and reliable player this season, then he makes our worst pass of the season and hands the Crocs the lead. Other than that shocking play he was excellent. Hit his shots and played Homicide as well as I've seen by any player this year.

Ng: Thought the Crocs played him pretty well early, always making sure he had to deal with a taller opponent (Tovey/Crawford) and a hand in his face. Still pushed on and found a way to get a few shots. Silky smooth.

Cortez: Isaac, if he's still not classified as a dumb player after that then I don't know who is. He was killing it through penetration and passing in the first half, the all of a sudden he hits two threes, gets a bit of confidence up and then starts jacking them up for the rest of the game without even looking at the keyway. Including, of course, that embarrassing attempt to win the game, where he was pretty easily blocked. (I know! the refs let a shot block go without calling a foul! Wow!)

Coop: Non-existant apart from one good block. We reeeeeaaallly shouldn't be running 5-out with him, Burston and Holmes on the floor. That was just sad.

Holmes: Very quiet apart from some solid D.

Hill: Great game and great timing. Made some pretty drives to the ring and played some nice D. Filled in ok when asked to backup the Point and rebounded well. But I'm sure I've missed something there. Hogged the ball? Too many minutes from daddy? The 4 turnovers were the sole negative.

Molitor and Garlepp: Surely they get some minutes in a meaningless game, if only just to see if they're up to it. Maybe the coaching staff have already made their decision on these two.


Refs: I'm so fed up with these retards I'm throwing up. I suck at refereeing but I can honestly say I would do a better job than these monkeys. That was the worst display of officiating since the Judas game. How hard is it to see that Hinder had BOTH OF HIS FEET out of bounds when he passed it?!?!?! BOTH FEET! I can't put into words how bad these guys are. 3 main points for next time the idiots take the court.

1. A spin move is NOT an automatic travel!!!

2. A blocked shot is NOT an automatic foul!!!

3. If you disagree with the above two points, then at least call that shit CONSISTENTLY!!!


As for the Crocs, I think it was more as case of the 6ers collapsing but good fight back nevertheless. Brad Williamson was unstoppable and anytime you get a win with your star PG having one of the worst games of his career you have to be happy.

Rolan Roberts is the interesting one. There are some big problems there between him and the coaching staff. Every time he came to the bench and every time-out he was either shaking his head away from the group at the end of the bench or he was arguing and looking very frustrated, talking to the assistant coach. Meanwhile I didn't see him have a word with Gleeson all night. It's like those two had a fight and Rolan can only communicate with the assistant now. Combine all this with some silly time-managemant by Gleeson (let him get into the game FFS!) and I think you Crocs guys have a serious problem that needs to be fixed before the playoffs. Rolan is a star, I'd call him the best defensive big man in the league. You can't win a championship with him playing 20mins a game and having communication issues with the coaches.

On a lighter note, how the hell do you run out of Ice Coffee at every single kiosk in the building??? It's a Farmers Union Iced Coffee or it's nothing, remember.


Before this game I was choosing between the NAB Cup showdown and the 36ers-Hawks game. I think I've made my call now.

El Ranto Finito.

I'm not supposed to mention it, but part of the next seeason of 24 got leaked a week back...

Paul and Jack Bauer uncover a ring of double agents within the Sixers and have a day to take Cortez, Hill and Ninnis out before the world... I mean season... ends.

For once, Jack was too late.

7,000 is great crowd (well 6,991) good numbers there.
(7800 seats)

Disappointing. The reffing didn't cost us the game, our lack of composure and basketball IQ did.

IMO: Herbert was probably our best player minus the pass. Pity we couldn't get him the ball more when he was hot.

Burston: Frustratingly under utilised in the first half.

Balls: Agree with X, he was solid.

Cortez: Stat line looks good, influence on game is another thing. Defence? Pair of 3's were nice though.

Hill: Far from a 'great game' but a lot better than most of his other games. Jekyll and Hyde kind of player, showed glimpses of what he can do but it comes at a cost. Probably a keeper for the future.

Rolan Roberts: I was sitting right behind the Crocs bench and I think his hissy fit was more directed at his own play on court rather than at Gleeson.. until he got rightfully got dragged then he mouthed off a bit. Around 3/4 time when he had calmed down a bit he acknowledged Gleeson with a smile and a bit of a hand slap. Seemed fine afterwards.

The Crocs team chemistry was very good, even when Homicide was off and Roberts was sulking.

Crowd was very good

Ninnis is at fault for not having a set play for the last 20 seconds, but you would think at NBL level, these players should be pretty professional and work out for themselves how to get that last shot in. The Crocs were that desperate to stop Adelaide scoring in that last 20 seconds, it couldn't have been that difficult to draw a foul. Such a bunch of unintelligent players. They are missing a piece of their uniform. Its called the thinking cap. To think nearly 7,000 people had to witness that woeful show in the end.

Anon, what else did Scotty say. I normally go up stairs after the game and did so tonight but couldn't be bothered waiting for him to come up.

OK, I'm no coaching expert, in fact I don't know the first thing about it.

But if Scott Ninnis can't see that the opposition players have set themselves ready for a shot before the ball is passed to them, and by the time the Adelaide defender rotates to them, it is too late - then he needs a few more years as an assistant coach I'm afraid.

Many NBL teams play alot beyond the arc - all the good shooting teams will have their players set themselves well before the ball comes to them. The Sixers defense is baffling as it focuses on being positioned more to collapse on the ballhandler - then when the inevitable kickout happens, the shooter is already set and the shot is automatic, and the last gasp hand-in-the-face is in vain. It's like the Sixers don't even consider that the ball may get passed to a shooter.

We've seen it happen time and again that teams bury us from range, and tonight the agonisingly slow defensive rotation was sticking out like a sore thumb.

yeah what was with the crowd number? that was a great turnout and it comes after we are playing bad and school holidays are over. Seems strange. At least it was one positive on the night, i guess the double header might have helped, did the girls have a nice crowd as well?

Girls had a greater crowd then normal which was great, bring back the doubel headers!

I know I might have touched on this before but when we go into D, notice what we do. We stand a good metre away and defend. Yeah a good metre too.
When in offence, they are in our face all the time.
Why did they have so many open shots for 3 early on I wonder.

The reffing wasnt great but at least Ray Hunt, damien Thiess, Tim Mills, Benn McDonald or Roger Shiels werent part of it. That lot are all senior panel and they suck badly at reffing.

Mind you, whoever the blonde ref tonight was, he should return back to div shit tech. Hopeless

i am sorry fellas but get rid of inferior staff at the dome, my god people are too lazy to recruit decent people, and the coach get rid of the red wine and the chip on the shoulder..be real people..what is running this ship....crap and if isaac resents this then its real isnt it..just be politically correct and i have seen the posts on this page and they are pathetic get a life and get involved , make something great... insist on the best,we are proud aouth aussies, for god sake, make an effort, i have seen for 15 years people just cruzing...you know you should be making more of an effort if you luv it so much...pull your fingers out bloggers(bludgers)

Why call a timeout with a a minute or so left just in case you need to run a play to at the end of the game. Scott is a great coach but for f sake I could coach better.

"Scott is a great coach but for f sake I could coach better."

Bah?

I sat there last night: My thoughts were:
Start: "We are shagged, it'll be over at half time"
Q1 5 min: "Shoot, we are playing not too badly"
At half time: "Keep it up boys, doing well"
3Qtr time: "OMG, Crocs will be losing toight"
Q4, up by 11, 6 mins to go: "This is the greatest escape since Ronnie Biggs"
Q4: scores even: "WTF?"
Q4: start of last play: "Tez, you've answered critics tonoght, just draw a foul, shot two FT's a be a hero"
End Q4: "WTF?"

Unfortunately when you are operating with a shoestring budget and the coach and team it buys, all the shoestring is good for is choking and how many times this season has this come true.

It really amazes me how people in a professional sport coaching capacity, regardless whether it is football (Craig and Williams), soccer (Vidmar) and basketball (Smyth is his last few seasons and Ninnis both seasons) cannot see and acknowledge what all the fans of the game can see.

The only positive one that may have happened due to fan and media pressure was moving Tippett to Full Forward instead of the ruck for the Crows mid last season.

Why does Ninnis need a time out to draw a play with 20 seconds left? That's shit coaching if the guys don't know what they are doing and need a time out. It wasn't like there was 2 seconds left on the clock at the time.

Surely they practice offensive sets that take 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds and 20 seconds to execute?. 20 seconds is damn near the whole shot clock.

Officially last on the ladder. When people were saying what a crap team Taipans have been this season, guess what? We are one better than them as far as CRAP goes. The team have proven all they need to prove and don't need any wins in the last 2 games. Hope they don't try to preserve some non existent pride at the cost of teams like Wollongong making the finals. Lets use the last 2 games to try and influence the teams we would prefer to make finals. Please, Please lose the last home game. Never thought I would hear myself saying that.

If there are no major changes next season, starting with the coach then I will change all my thoughts about SOS. To be quite honest, I would rather no team at all than the embarrasing one we had this season. To say he has another year is crap because officially everyone was on a 1 year contract this season. I don't care about any verbals. They're not worth the paper they're written on and after experiencing this season. forget about it. Even if a contract was a legal binding document, then surely lack of performance would invalidate it anyway.

Agree with EC and TR regarding professionals knowing how to run a single play without needing a time out. It's tough to blame Ninnis (and I'm not a fan of his coaching in general!) when a 'professional' 32 year old, previously MVP material baller can't figure out a decent play with almost a whole shotclock left to run it! It was terrible! A real pity as granted, before then it was one of his better games. He still went stone cold in the 4th and instead of altering his game, just kept bombing away, even to the point of destroying the last play

Didnt Ninnis learn anything from all the quality coaches he played under and worked with as an assistant.
No quick hit offenses, sporadic ball movement which always ends up as 1 on 5 ,woeful on ball defense where ball pressure means stand 2 metres off your man and wave your hand in the air.
The excuses of a budget team is a joke.
We have 3 yanks, 2 09 Championship players and solid quality Aussies more than capable of beating everyone consistantly in this league.
Who else is there left at Sturt that can coach this team, a floor wiper perhaps! they cant screw it up more than weve seen over the past 5 years.

its not just the timeout m8, there were many errors last night. why call a timeout when it was a free throw anyway down your end. you can tell the guys what you want to say as they are right in front of you. The players were surprised he called it and so were the other coaches. you could see it on their faces.
At one stage we had cooper, ng, holmes, burston and hill on the court. Ng was playing point with 4 other guys that are not shooters and we ended up playing terrible for a 4 or minute period. Ng cant create his own shot and had no one to pass it to him so basically is wasted out there. holmes isnt 100 fit so not playing great. hill played ok in patches again but all 1 on 1 apart fom his 3. burston is great but we seriously need to pass it into him a balls more and not after playing with it outside for so long. they olny got picked off as we fiddled with it for too long before making the pass.
The answer is we need someone with court vision that can actually get the ball to the players in the right spot at the right time.

How good was that piper at half time!!!

For a moment, I thought Luke was back

What another heart-breaking loss at home.

The refeering was an inconsistent disgrace again and it gets me angrier every home game. A clean shot block is not a damn defensive foul.

The Crocs fool had both feet out of bounds when he passed it on and the left ignored it.

18 seconds to put a shot up for a win or draw a foul for some free throws. Nobody stepping up, no play drawn up, disgusting.

Scott Ninnis hasn't improved from last year and hasn't introduced much more. He should just step down and let someone take over. Take Cooper and the Assistant Coaches with you.

I stormed out on the buzzer with madness and just about stomping my feet on the ground on the walk back to the car.

I'm dreading and considering going to the pre-season footy next home game instead of the final home game.

Last night's game sucked and was frustrating all-round. No entertainment value last night.

"Coop: Non-existant apart from one good block."

Yeh he didnt put up a shot, but his Defense with Burston is what put us into that 10 point lead. The Crocs centres didnt get a look in while they were there. Sitting him and Burston down, replacing him with Holmes...lead gone, game lost. Burston should be swapping with Cooper so we ALWAYS have a centre on court, Holmes, Ballinger arent centres.

Groves should never have had to have that last shot was horrible to watch..awful coaching again. Still hasnt learnt that we NEED a centre on the court.

Hill...Great game....Well he scored 11, cost us 18. 4 BAD turnovers, a layup that didnt even hit the ring (HOW DO YOU DO THAT), another POOR 3 point attempt that he should never be shooting. Still it was probaly his best game of the season, Which says he entirely needs to either play ONLY 5 mins a game..or go elsewhere.

Ng stood up well tonight few of his shots didnt drop and that was pretty unlucky but it was nice to see him taking on players from the 3 point line.

Skud your a dick

Great to see you had some input Mmm, real class and intelligence shown.

I meant to say guy not coach, I had a few drinks when I wrote the last post

Hear! Hear! Igotmadskills.
Frustrating to watch the guys all trying their best like a ship with no damn rudder.

Everyone is saying they would rather go to the footy than the sixers next home game.
Footy starts at 4:10pm - NAB Cup game is only 20 minute quarters with no time on so the game will be over by 6:30 or so, still leaves plenty of time to make it to the sixers game at 7:30pm!
Don't be fairweather supporters........turn up!

I have been rather critical of J Gilchrist running the point - I do think overall Cortez did a much better job getting the team into the game than Saturday than Gilchrist ever does.

That said, when it came to the last play of the game, it was clear that NOBODY on the Sixers team wanted to take the shot. Cortez passed to Ng with 15 seconds left, he looked at the ball as if shocked and passed it to Ballinger 4 metres out from the three point line. He didn't want it, and gave it back to Cortez. It was like a hot potato that nobody wanted to be left with at the end. So Cortez's ill-conceived three attempt at the end really was because nobody else wanted to take control of the ball. The only guy on the team (at present) who ever wants the ball is Gilchrist (in his case perhaps too much).

Need at least one player next season with his head screwed on properly who can be relied on to make clutch plays. Woe is us that Maher couldn't play til he was 60.

Can't remember too many times with Brett out there that a Sixers team with one last shot didn't at least get a half-decent look.

Expected a bit of a thrashing but thought that with their backs up the team might surprise us. And then, other than not defending the Crocs' array of outside threats, the season was kinda summed up by that horrible final play. It didn't tell us anything that we didn't already know, either.

Saddest thing was that it all happened in front of such a great crowd. Hopefully they make the right changes and get things on track for next season.

Last play was a disgrace.
Cannot believe we also do not know how to put a hand in a hot shooters face! How many times this year have we lost due to a hot streak? I can think of Wortho, Redhage and know Williamson I think it was, that have burned us in a quarter.
Shocking lads, glad the tcket was free Saturday night, but yet I still felt ripped off.

Did anyone see that dog out the front? It peed on my wifes leg.... HILARIOUS!

They were both in the mall sunday - i got some vision of it which will be a part of my supporters tour video - it'll be on youtube tonight or tomorrow night

so impressed with everyone and everything adelaide offered me!

Hey Rod

I saw you in the mall yesterday, was gonna come and say hi but I had just ordered food and by the time I got it, I couldn't se you anymore.

Our team did do you a favour. We let you foul out Corey and only win by 1 point