Looks like it'll be a good round with quite a few games influencing the playoff rankings. I wouldn't be surprised if Adelaide tried to rain on a few parades there!

Finally the game of the round will be the televised game - can't see Perth losing on their home court though. Also will be interesting given Melbourne will be coming off of the Adelaide game whereas Perth will be fresher, the Lynx managed to weather the storm last time they were in their second game of the weekend, it'll be interesting to see whether Melbourne can do the same.

Ladder situation:

Perth Lynx 14-4
Townsville Fire 11-6
Sydney Uni Flames 11-7
Melbourne Boomers 11-7
Adelaide Lightning 9-9
Dandenong Rangers 7-11
UC Capitals 5-13
Bendigo Spirit 3-14


PERTH
Games: vs MEL, @ CAN, @ TSV
Splits won over everyone except MEL (tied 1-1)
1 win secures top spot

TOWNSVILLE
Games: @ CAN, vs BEN, @ SYD, vs PER
Splits over MEL & ADL. Tied with SYD. Lost to PER.

MELBOURNE
Games: @ ADL, @ PER, vs DAN
Split over ADL. Tied with PER. Lost to TSV & SYD.

SYDNEY
Games: vs ADL, vs TSV, @ BEN
Splits over MEL & ADL. Tied with TSV. Lost to PER.

ADELAIDE
Games: vs MEL, @ SYD, vs BEN
Split over SYD. Lost to PER, TSV & MEL.


So there's still plenty of possibilities.

The fire to put the caps to the sword tonight if I had to guess

Top spot is still possible for both Melbourne & Townsville, so yeah I would expect big games from both of them tonight.

Adelaide can certainly affect the finals but I don't think they will get two wins this round especially against teams trying to solidify their place in the top four.

Make an interesting last round if Melbourne can upset Perth in Perth.

I'll be cheering for Adelaide tonight. Even if they can't win, hopefully they make life hard for the Boomers. Double OT would be handy ;)

I'm not writing the Caps off either, even vs the Fire. They're on a 3 game winning streak and feeling good, and you just never know with Townsville on the road.

Townsville are definitely the hardest of the four to get a read on IMO. We all know Suzy will get her 20&10 but it's more a question of who else will show up and put some meaningful numbers on the board.

Oh wow ... after trailing by 1 at the final break, Bendigo Spirit play a 20-2 4th quarter vs the Rangers :O

Lightning looking good vs Melbourne

Boomers more turnovers than baskets!

Whoa .. it literally was, yeah.

Lighting fighting for that 4th spot. Good to see.

Makes Saturdays (Fox livestream) Sydney - Adelaide game massive.

Sydney only have to beat Bendigo to secure 4th. Boomers will lose to Perth and drop 2 games this wkend.

What's up with Lavey missing another game for Rangers? Rangers can't buy any luck this season..

Townsville smash Canberra. There just getting ready for the real season to begin! With all that talent, their my tip to win it!

Sydney need to win two out of three to make the finals or they will be playing Russian roulette.

Yikes Dandenong.. 18 more shots attempted yet lose by 17 to the team on the bottom of the ladder. Also why on earth were all of Bendigo's starters on at the end against Dandenong's bench? That is just shocking time management there given they have to travel up to Townsville for a Sat night game.

Tipped Adelaide to get the job done against Melbourne - but it looked a poor performance by Melbourne based on the stats. They'd better get their act together quickly because they're up against Perth on their home turf next!

Rangers are missing 3 starters from their lineup. Not sure why Lavey didn't play? But that will hurt any teams chances in this tough league.

The Rangers keep saying they are missing three starters when their starting group for the first nine games of the season was:

Lavey, St Blicavs, Sa Blicavs, Mijovic, Pedersen

While Sara has missed 10 games since her knee injury, Lavey has only missed 4 including last night's game.

So that’s 4 games they have missed two starters. Period.

any reason why rangers get so much focus on here about their losing season?

Big game coming up between Adelaide vs Sydney this round. Sydney should win I think.

Rangers missing 3 key players instead of 3 starters...in 2 Opals and an Import! Good luck to any team losing that much quality!

boomers only shoot 56pts last night? lizzy is going to need more support from her team mates come finals time!

yeah, sydney would be lost if we had 3 key players out. bad luck rangers.

"Rangers missing 3 key players instead of 3 starters...in 2 Opals and an Import! Good luck to any team losing that much quality!"

Missed games:

Dandenong: Blicavs (10), Palau (5), Lavey (4)
Melbourne: Duever (14), O'Hea (5), Tomlinson (5), Cambage (1)
Adelaide: Hodges (17), Clydesdale (4), Novosel (3), Planetta (1)
Sydney: Tupaea (18), Taylor (2), Snell (1), Ebzery (1)

Looks like the contenders are manging this better than the Rangers.

Easier to manage when there not all injured at the same time! And have bigger budgets to spend on a quality bench.

Sorry, didn't understand. I thought it was the three starters...no two starters...missing. I didn’t realise it was the budget despite Dandenong boasting one of the highest budgets. Thanks for clarifying.

did someone mention mark wright on this thread??

Bar last night's game, I'd say Dandenong have been pretty commendable in their efforts this season without three major players.

The vendetta against Larissa is starting to get annoying now...get over it, you look stupid... can't you tell you're the minority! Sorry, I wouldn't be playing that bench a lot if I had them either) In a tough league like this you don't just get to play cause you're sitting on the bench or on a roster... it's not juniors where everyone gets a go. Give it a rest on the Larissa bagging... like a player, it takes a long time to be a good coach at the highest level....look at Cheryl Chambers, Karen Dalton - they toiled for years!
They've spent half the amount on their roster that Boomers, Fire, Lightning have spent.
The team in inconsistent, it's not always just fatigue.

As a Spirit supporter, I can say that it wasn't until the last 3 mins of last nights game that I thought we'd win.

Capitals and Spirit had the weakest squads coming into the season, think everyone had them towards the bottom. Injuries to the likes of Jarry, Griffin etc compound the problem.

Not sure what they can do squad wise next season to improve, there's only a few Aussies in America/Europe not over here. Imports may need a step in quality but that's easier said Hahn done irt money.

The Caps roster should be very competitive with likes of Hurst, Hooper, Bass plus all the great Aussie talent? Maybe it's taken awhile for them to gel.

Roster stability is not great in the WNBL, especially when it comes to imports (import retention rate seems to run at ~ 20%), but the Caps have got themselves an excellent leader in Hurst and a quality core of young locals, so I think they're on the right track if they can keep most of that group. They finish near the bottom, but they're really not far off the pace.

There was a fair amount of players who returned from O/S this season compared to those that left. There's always players away but it's going to be harder than the start of this season to bring more back. Those graduating from college should definitely be looked at.

You always want teams to develop and play the locals but it's give/take scenario. Coaches and teams need to win. I'm surprised benches in WNBL are not used as regularly as they are, but can understand it.

I think you'll find WNBL bench roles are not paid very well and as a result, the quality of players between starters and bench is a big difference.

Minimum salary is $7,500. Most teams spend most of their budget on starters and significantly less on their bench.

I don't think bumping up the min wage will alter the level of depth teams have, the players who would bolster depth are those plying their trades overseas - who would all likely be starters in the league and be paid well beyond the min wage, and those currently in college.

If it were me trying to keep those college bound kids in the WNBL, I'd be trying to align teams with Aus universities - similar to the Boomers with Deakin and try to lure them to stay that way with free or close to further education. Obviously some would still want to go for the experience factor and maybe even the exposure/more direct or traditional WNBA route, but I'd bet there would be quite a few willing to stay for the chance to train/play against the players in the WNBL which I'm sure would be invaluable. The current span of the season works quite well with the Australian university system anyway - the uni year concludes between mid oct to mid nov and doesn't recommence until March the following year.

IMO increasing the minimum wage would only drive a further wedge between the clubs with a seemingly bottomless pit of cash and those with lesser funds to play with. i.e. cashed up clubs would run 10-11 deep with 'senior' players whereas those not so would perhaps be going with 7-8 and topped up with amateur contracts or DPs. It's a very fine balancing act with deciding whether there should be an increase in min wages and/or introduction of a salary cap in that the min wage increase could potentially drive that wedge in, but a salary cap while it would help even out the competition it could compromise the quality.

I agree with those views. Right now, most teams 9 or 10 players would be lucky to be impact players in SEABL.

Looks to me like Cambage and Cole are sitting this game out :/

You at the game, Luuuc? Cole did go off early Q3 in Adelaide but the other one is a huge shock.

At the game yep. Neither player announced. Takes a lot of the sting out of this game.

Yep, season over for Lightning. Top four set.

Melbourne has the head to head on Adelaide, so would go through regardless no?

Adelaide are done n dusted.

Townsville 68pts as a halftime score vs Bendigo. Is that some sort of WNBL record??

Clydesdale 28pts in normal time (FG12/13,3P4/5). Missing that three (& a free throw) has effectively cost her team playoffs. Shame on her!

Absolute cracking game to watch. Lightning brought great energy but fatigue was evident later, trying to hold out renowned resolute club. Huge game from Bishop also and Taylor back to form with 35.

Lots of great offensive games in the Adelaide vs Sydney. Taylor
35pts. Adelaide's defence was obviously their weakness.

I haven't seen the term "Don't poke the bear" more apt than it was this afternoon. 5 minutes left in the first half, Boomers playing well and up by 5, Williams cops a poke in the eye from Conti, and then goes on a personal crusade of Boomer destruction.
7 buckets without a miss, with 2 of them from steals and one from a huge O-board, plus 2 assists. She created ALL of Perth's points in an 18-5 run, and we went into half time with all the momentum and up by 8. Just awesome.

(Hope that foot/ankle is ok though. I'm guessing she won't be a part of our final round road trip to Canberra & Townsville)

I like the spin that the WNBL has put on Melbourne,
"Melbourne into the playoffs first time since 13/14".
Forget about loosing their last 3 games.
We'll see how far they go.

Darcee Who?? Player of the round, maybe? Abby Bishop shouldn't be too far off as well.

Yep, Garbs gets my vote.
Great round for Bishop too, but only went 1-1.

There was a good chunk of bench v bench in both Townsville games, so whether that should realistically go against Darcee?

I'm a best performance guy rather than looking them at team result, so I'm tempted to go for Bishop given the calibre & staure of both matches. It certainly wasn't her fault they lost (it was Clydesdale's for missing one three!). Then again, they may give it to someone else, such as Taylor.

Hard week to choose, agreed. Wouldn't be upset if it was given to Garbin, she's been finding some form lately.

That's quite harsh on Clydesdale for just one action in a game.

Perth are unbelievable! 14 in a row! This should be news plastered everywhere. Amazing achievement.

Aimie's +/- across the two games was much superior to Bishop and not sure which player would keep her out of TOTW, at least.

Hm looks like Ebzery is the one to keep Clydesdale out of TOTW - the team is Ebzery, Williams, Taylor (POTW), Garbin & Bishop. Can't say I agree with Ebzery over Clydesdale at all - but I suppose they weight a team win greater than an individual performance which to be honest I feel they have done all season.

Depends what the Opals need. Clydesdale's better offensively, Lavey better defensively.

not much between lavey and clydesdale, lavey has more intentional experience...

Ebzery, Whitcomb, Seekamp could all cover PG if needed. Top two would have to be Mitchell/Mansfield.

Going really deep with talk of these prospects, there's not a lot of spots available.

I'm surprised Ebzery got into the TOTW. I don't even think her game looked better than Hamson.
18p @ 42%, 7ass, +7 vs 19p @ 69%, 9reb, +13

I'd take Wallace over Cydlesdale and Lavey. Clydesdale would be soft on the international stage.

I wasn't calling them PGs, just that they could cover that position (Ebzery has) as a third (or even fourth) option in a 12 player squad if needed where spots are limited and you need versatile players.

Clydesdale missed a shit? Sounds dangerous

Reply #663089
re: WNBL Round 12
Hurst and Clydesdale going...
Question is, would you take Wallace or Mangakahia over Lavey?
Or neither.

Ebzery is a sufficient 3rd string pg if required.?

Lol....Mangakahia isn't even in the equation....she’s playing college ball and not great college ball at that, absolutely no comparison,who ever keeps bringing her up in these threads needs to give it a rest.

Wallace is not a PG either, never really has been, she’s a 2