Yes, congrats to the league for securing this deal with Youtube. A nice upgrade on last weekend's broadcast partner, Periscope.

:/

Anyone predicting an upset in either game?
I'm leaning towards the home teams in both games.
The loss of Mansfield really throws off the Stars' balance, and I think the Fire's experience plus their size inside gives them the edge over Perth.

I saw SEQ twice last weekend and they could hardly have been more different games.
Against the Boomers they looked a rabble. Against the Rangers they had zero trouble getting the ball up the floor. Point guard by committee barely even came into it, as everyone on the floor contributed to advancing the ball very quickly and efficiently.

However I'm assuming the Rangers played a major part in allowing that to happen. Larissa is a crafty one, and I'll bet she will have a strong focus on ball pressure in the rematch.
If SEQ can withstand it then they're a great chance to win, I agree. They're a really potent team, and that's at both ends. If they blew Dandy away I would not be shocked.
But if I had to tip, I think the percentages are with the Rangers D to get it done. They seem to lift a level at home.

20 minutes until tip-off, and SEQ are favourites with the punters

Rangers $2.10
SEQ $1.66

Amazing win SEQ stars! After the season they have had its one of the greatest stories in WNBL atm.

GO STARS!

geat job STARS

The team of destiny pulled it out.
Really good second half of basketball after a pretty forgettable first half.
Rangers were well in control of that one and just slacked off a bit before half time, and you can't leave the door open against SEQ.

To play with such a shallow lineup, no centre, and to win the rebounds 41-29, is a massive effort.

Why didn't Bunton play at all today. Might have helped on the boards.

Probably match-ups. They were looking good for so much of the game Anderson probably didn't want to change the formula.

How many years in a row has Dandenong failed to win a HOME elimination final??? Blicavs was phenomenal for Dandenong (her Uncle Boti will be sure to tell us all about it in his next article for the Advertiser) & Cummings was a complete non-factor for Dandenong, I guess Larissa would have had higher expectations for the team's Captain to play much better than what she produced yesterday.

I'm not sure I'd call nine o-boards to eight a smashing on the boards!

They were beaten in that area, yes, but were killing SEQ with their pressure defence which forced 23 turnovers. It's give and take when you mix up your line-ups.

My biggest criticism of Anderson not rotating her bench more was the intensity of their pressure dropped in the final quarter as fatigue set in, and that's what cost them the game, not rebounding.

I didn't think Cumming did much wrong. She shot 2/11, which is obviously bad, but she took good shots. They didn't drop for her yesterday, but most days those same shots would.

I agree that Dandy's defensive intensity seemed to ease off in the second half. Credit where it's due to SEQ too though, for making the most of the many mismatches out there.
Rangers tried Scherf a couple of times, but it didn't really come off in their favour. I doubt Bunton would have either, but it's definitely strange they wouldn't at least try if she was healthy. I thought they should have got more than 50 combined minutes out of their bench.

Rangers faced a bit of a dilemma I thought. With 12 players at their disposal compared to just 8 for SEQ, a track meet would have favoured them physically. But that's not their game style, and it is SEQ's. So they needed to find a way to play disciplined offence, use up the clock to make SEQ's defenders expend energy at that end, and crank up their own energy level at the other end.

For the most part they did it pretty well, but once SEQ loosened up and the shots started dropping, suddenly the mismatches worked mostly in their favour.


Perth will make for an interesting contest, assuming we lose today. Our guards are still small (actually even smaller than Dandenong's) so still prone to getting exploited down on the block, but we certainly won't be afraid to crank the pace up to maximum. I'd like to think our ball pressure will be a lot better than Dandenong's too.

I still think the Rangers should have won yesterday though. Credit to SEQ for having the heart and skill to steal it, but it was the Rangers' lapses that allowed it to happen.

Today:
Fire $1.33
Lynx $3.00
Margin -5.5 points

Cummings needed to,come off her shot was just not on, and running her into the ground did nothing to help. How often do you see coaches do this same thing in pressure situations. Why have your bench if you cannot use them or have no faith in them. It always ends up costing games and that game was in the bag, but poor decisions from players who were tired and coaching staff cost them the opportunity to succeed.

So the league stuffed up their original Youtube broadcast.
It's now at this URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P21WAmb__Q4

... but it is garbage. Does Townsville not have ADSL yet? This is really disappointing :(

Whats happened to Cunningham? I remember a playoff game for Dandy years back (before she left for Logan) when she singlehandly won them the game and now cant even get on court.

So Perth will host the Grand Final and probably win it all! What an incredible turn around.

Woohoo!!!

Reckon our starters might have been watching that Warriors-Thunder game before this one started, because they came out gunning

"What turn around? Oh yeah they finally spent some money.. people always trying to talk up their teams as if the roster is the same and they've overcome something/ What has this team overcome?"

They've overcome some quality opposition to make it to a grand final with home court advantage, and they're done it with a roster that not many people rated at the start of the season (which incidentally is why I got them at $26.00 for the title)

If no playoffs for 16 years, including finishing dead last for the last 3 seasons, and then hosting a grand final the next season doesn't constitute a "turn around", then I really don't know what does!

Well said Luuuc, even if it does show you don't have any basketball knowledge.

Well it's consoling to me that that person doesn't either, since Bendigo didn't finish top 5

Their supporters seem to, judging by Luuuc's comments.

And not Sydney?

This season was a raffle for me right from the start, apart from Townsville being at the top, and Adelaide being at the bottom (which didn't end up happening)

With the talent that Canberra were going to field, there were plenty of reasons they could have been a good team. Ditto Melbourne before the injuries started.

Sydney were pretty damn good this season, a bit unlucky with injuries, I can't agree that anyone with any basketball knowledge would have picked them outside the top five!

Not many who watched Sydney last season would have written them off this season.

And not many saw the recruiting of Mijovic, Burton and Lavey plus some girl out of the WA state league and thought "Oh shit! We in trouble now!"

Anon is pretty stupid, a team goes from easy beats for years running directly to hosting a grand final and its not considered a 'turn around'.

I'm enjoying how they keep digging a hole.

I get what he is saying. If I hadn't had to earn a living I'd have been in the NBA.

Well, now you're unemployed there's nothing holding you back, except a lack of basketball knowledge I suppose.

I'm really confused by what Natalie Burton brings, it's like she is a foil for all her team mates and the opposition are supposed to recognise her as an Opal and she should be double teamed or something...

I sure hope she doesn't make the Olympics as I'd take Gabe Richards over her every day of the week and even Gabe will struggle to make that squad.

> Luuuuc and Paul, did you have the Lynx in your top 5

As I think I said above, I struggled to place any of the teams other than Townsville & Adelaide this season. The rest were a raffle to me, and I'm pretty sure I didn't post my picks for a ladder anywhere that I can dig up & check. I thought the Lynx were a playoff shot, and that's about the extent of it.

There are a few thoughts from around the start of the pre-season in this thread:
http://www.hoops.com.au/forum/38100-wnbl-odds/

^ That's great, lots of Anon know it alls making all sorts of pre season calls like SEQ have no chance of playoffs with Phillips out and Mansfeild playing the point, Perth don't stand any chance of making playoffs etc, No wonder they don't put their names to these claims!
I had Townsville, SEQ, Bendigo, Perth and Sydney as my preseason top 5. But apart from the Fire as certainties it was always going to be pretty close between every other team apart from Adelaide and Canberra.

I didnt do a prediction as such but I thought they would be middle of the road, competitive but no way did I think they'd have this big a turnaround. Full credit to them and the Wildcats for investing in them.

Not a lot of details here, but it does include this line:
"The Logan City Council's rescue mission, with the help of sponsors and Basketball Australia, had been successful, with enough money found to end the season."

http://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/2016/02/29/everythings-gone-wrong-girls-just-keep-winning/

Btw the Fire-Lynx game was uploaded to Youtube yesterday.
Do yourself a favour and check out the Carley, Sami & Betty show in glorious HD :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKT5LXhmvjY

Preliminary Final:

Townsville Fire vs SEQ Stars, 3pm Qld time.

Fire $1.50
Stars $2.50

YouTube Live Webcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PHYe-nq8qg

(Hopefully they've found some bandwidth and it works better than last week's effort!)

Updated link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P21WAmb__Q4

Just got done watching the prelim. Much like the NZ Breakers in the NBL GF, it looked like this game was a bridge too far for the SEQ Stars.
It was always going to take something really special for them to contain the Fire's bigs, and it didn't happen. Batkovic got going early and the Fire just steamrolled the Stars all game with great inside-outside combinations. Looked a much more switched on team than the one Perth brushed aside last weekend.

So in the end we got the "correct" GF series IMO. Should be a good one.