no....but i hope they beat up on them for saturdays game!

There's a chance. Breakers might be getting a smidgen too much credit at the moment for pummeling a shattered Wollongong at home, whilst putting 90+ points on Cairns is not an easy thing. So Townsville is in this with a shot - I would put my dough on NZ, of course, but they could get it done.

I would expect NZ to get this one but at home the crocs are a sneaky chance

Was fascinated to see the bookies have Cairns as favourites for Sunday.

If Cairns continues form, and Townsville bring it together just a smidgen more, I think all teams will consider picking up 1W from a sunshine swing to be a successful weekend.

"Breakers might be getting a smidgen too much credit at the moment for pummeling a shattered Wollongong at home"

being the 3 time champions with a pretty stable roster laden with talent has nothing to do with it?

^ Ehh, a bit. But was referring to that game specifically.

@Nathan, I cant see any way Cairns will lose on Sunday.

I expect NZ to win both. By 10 in the first and 4 against Cairns.

I can, they are playing the Breakers - close games were their stock in trade last year. I would be tipping Breakers over Crocs, then Taipans over Breakers though.

@Mystro, nice to see I'm not the only one-eyed gent around here.

Absolutely Nathan, the team has earned my faith over the last 3 seasons by winning games they had no place winning as well as having an incredible road record.
Cairns will be tough (not that Townsville won't be either) but the Breakers bench could beat Townsville IMO so I see NZ's bench depth getting them over the line against the Taipans.

Breakers v Taipans is clearly match of the round. I don't see many teams sweeping the sunshine swing but if any team can it's NZ so I will go NZ by 12 against the crocs and by 3 against Cairns

It will be a great match whichever way it ends up. My gut feel this year is that there are more teams this year that you can rely on to hold serve on home court, and I think Cairns are one of them (also Adelaide).

I think (at this stage) Cairns will be actually tougher at home than Adelaide, Cairns supporters tend not to boo their own team.

I noticed Michael di Fabrizio @ Hoopology actually tipped Cairns as taking 1st this year!

I think Townsville have a good chance this game and I think it's because of one man...

Steven Markovic was ineffective to pathetic last week and he is a proud man and want to come out fired up this week so I expect him to control this game and if the imports stay out of foul trouble that will help heaps.

Got to be excited any time Blanchard comes up against Abercrombie in a game.

If breakers win then I think Chief Pledgehammer will be too big and strong and dominant.

Also I think Cairns will win by 12+ on Sunday and this will give everyone an eye opener as to how tough the Sunshine swing still is.

Last year didn't New Zealand beat both Townsville and Cairns in overtime away last year or were they just super close games until the final couple of plays

Boti Nagy just put up his rankings and I will present his top 3 without comment:

1 Cairns
2 New Zealand
3 Perth

Cairns do look good I'll give them that but so did the Hawks last season.

Markovic was pathetic last week. Most of his decent looking boxscore came after the game was over. He needs to lose some goddamn weight and look to push the tempo.

It's a home game for Townsville but their crowd and game night presentation will be so poor that it's hardly an advantage. Might be lucky and catch NZ napping if they have spent all their time this week preparing for Cairns instead.

I'm worried about Shawn Dennis' game plan for the Crocs. He wants to push the pace of the game up and get up lots of shots, but to me every other team in the league is better at playing in a high-pace game. All he is doing is playing into the oppositions' hands. We pushed the pace up last week and it just allowed Jamar Wilson to dominate.

Having said that $2.95 is a hell of a good price for a team at home that in its second game with a new coach and large roster turnover we really don't know all that much about.

@Nathan...is that the order Boti had them listed to finish?

@Tornado: no it's just his weekly "power" rankings.

Mick, Dean Vickerman has said that the Breakers will prepare for Cairns only after the Townsville game is over.
It has worked in the past for the team so he will be following that tradition from Lemmanis

@Mystro,

In Wollongong's defence, they would have continued to look good if they hadn't lost both starting guards in the one game. Could have been a much more exciting season last year if that hadn't happened. So I wouldn't necessarily use Wollongong as a example for why Cairns might not continue their form.

I do remember reading that Joey Wright said that he thought Cairns would be the team to beat this year, though I can not recall where I read it.

Poor Crocs, more discussion of Taipans than Crocs in here.

Just like there was more Taipans' fans than Crocs' at The Swamp last Saturday night?

^ I really hope that's not true

I was there, Nathan. Mick was being facetious, but Taips fans came in their hundreds. Probably about 400 altogether

Must have been great for the atmosphere

It was flat out disheartening. So much of the crowd consisted of middle-aged to older people because they're the only ones who care about the team. The younger people couldn't care less. Such a shame. On the whole, those who live in Townsville aren't scraping the bottom of the barrel--there is so much going on up here but the kids (of which it's incredible how many have iphones, nice clothes, shoes, cars etc.) Don't want to spend $10 on a ticket to a night out. They'd rather spend $10 per shot any one of the clubs up here.

Townsville as a populous is so segmented--people are either working their asses off, partying or studying. You have people from all over the country living here for work, uni students again from all over the country. It took me by surprise just how much of an industry and lifestyle influence the university is up here. The wealth demographic is also pretty spread. As I said, on the whole Townsvillians are well-off, but you can get the extremely rich to extremely poor. Fun fact, Townsville is the steroid capital of the world, so a mate told me the other day.

The crocs really needs to look at targeting young people. I remember they released snapbacks as merchandise a little while ago, but apart from that, nothing. You can't exactly expect kids to fall in love with the crocs because they sold snapbacks as merch one time. To me, it's almost too late once they're in their twenties, need to get to them at a younger age. I Know they do the odd school/community visit, but clearly more effort needs to be made. They have proven before with I think sixty odd games sold out consecutively a few years back that the city cares about basketball. The junior basketball comps are absolutely packed with kids and adults alike, regardless of how poorly run Townsville Basketball is. It's crazy how much they are underachieving as a business.

If the NBL jersey's looked half as cool as the NBA jersey's they'd be winning.

Yeah the key for the crocs is getting young people involved again. Young people set trends. Theyre supposed to be the early adopters.

On a friday or saturday night they need to get the vast swathes of young morons to the game before they hit the clib strip.

The crowd is indeed very geriatric, and while you have to take your hat off to the old codgers, it makes for terrible atmosphere. I had one old lady tell me to keep it down once last season for cheering...

Haha wow that's terrible. What were you saying to get her so ticked off?

It's kinda funny because its not exactly an old codger's sort of sport, going by the stereotypes. So getting the geriatrics but not the youth is an odd one.

I wasnt even doing anything untoward. Just clapping and cheering after a big play etc. Unfortunately that's the way it is now in Townsville. Ten years ago it was the best NBL venue in the country bar none. Such a sad fall from grace.

They were called the Green Machine - too many complaints from people sitting near them that they were too loud, too much swearing, used too many loud instruments and ended up getting banned by the management at the entertainment centre.

Everyone wanted them, but no one wanted them sitting near them!

They were all basketball players too, so they knew the game and the opposition players well enough for their chants to be funny and got the crowd into it with them at the right times.

We are starting our schools program next week officially too. We have done a few school holidays camps and school clinics, but next week is the first one we are doing as part of the program in conjunction with Townsville Basketball.

Crocs by 5 tonight too ;)

Id love to sit near them rod.

Remember when the whole crowd used to act like those guys?

That's what a home court advantage is.

NZ off to the races, Abercrombie super aggressive off the bat.

Pledger looking active for NZ. Crocs sticking with NZ. Both teams pushing the ball

Blanchfield showing his skills off. A lot to like about his offensive game.

No crowd, it's time to hang up the shoes....... Was great fun while it lasted.

Crocs would be up by ten if all the fouls & and 1s were called instead of all the no whistles. They are just playing the game the right way ten times more than NZ and are getting no love from the refs.

NZ help defender late to rotate onto a conklin or blanchfield drive? Hammer them and if they make it they make it, if they miss you get a fast break.

This new officiating is as bad as the old book. It only works for you if youre Perth or NZ.

Vukona leaves nothing on the floor. Id love to have him on my team.

Watch the perth game!

poor effort breakers- very disappointing.

Great performance by the Crocs. Turnovers killed it for NZ, to sloppy with the ball and couldn't find their range outside the arc to peg it back.

NZ with so many travel turnovers and failing to convert gimme's where the Crocs were finding what they wanted offensively.

Shame their weren't more Crocs supporters there

Cmon Crocs supporters get behind this team! They work hard and they just beat the 3x defending champions. Hopefully this gives the community a little boost to attend the next game.

Disappointing crowd ;(

When a horse is dead,,, don't flog it anymore.

I dont think the Crocs have EVER had less than 3k people. Very poor showing.

Maybe getting the win over the defending champs will entice a few fence sitters?

They organization is not without fault here though. There is a lot more they can do to engage fans.

Off the top of my head there are a few ideas.

1. If you know a game isnt going to get close to a sellout, give away a bunch of tickets to underprivileged people or high school kids.

2. Have a better relationship with the media. Don't treat them with contempt and spoonfeed them multiple stories every day.

3. Have a 2 for 1 night for tix in a certain section to get people along.

4. Free upgrades to better seats if they dont get filled. Its bad to see all the empty seats in the lower sections. Would be very easy to facilitate now tix are digitized.

5. better deals for students. Tap into the massive student population at jcu and give them a shuttle bus.

6. Make the game night experience less cringe worthy

7. better deals for employees at major sponsor companies. All the kids that work at maccas should get half price tickets.

8. Massive armed forces population. They get in for half price too.

9. Keep winning

Haha sorry that was my bad phrasing. I meant dont treat them with contempt...and ALSO make sure you spoonfeed them multiple stories.