Sandy said all the usual things in her interview, looking at all the players in form in the WNBL. Haven't listened to Basket Case yet.

Biggest news is Wallace's debut. Good for and the Caps. My only is I hope her playing doesn't come at the expense of Rocci's role and time, she's really taken her chances this season, would hate to see it change,

Finals landscape still up in the air. Even Bendigo can make it if they stop their streak, Perth too will want to stop theirs or they'll be having to battle it out with upwards trending Dandenong/Adelaide.

Either of the Rangers games are MOTR. If they can win at least one will be great. Any guesses for a stream this week?

I looked for hints of a stream this week but couldn't find any. Maybe this round they have decided to pleasantly surprise us with a working stream instead of the usual routine of disappointing us with fails.

Agree that the Dandenong games are the good ones this round. Glad one of them is the TV game. Hopefully Pedersen is back in action to help match up with all of Melbourne's bigs.

I think it is unavoidable that Rocci's minutes get impacted, unfortunately. I agree that she has done really well with her increased opportunities. But Mitchell + Rocci + Wilson + Wallace at 2 positions is officially an embarrassment of riches once Wallace is match fit.

Canberra to field two WNBL teams next season! #ExpansionSolved

Cole is having a great season, so too Nicholson and even Seekamp, but it will go with how the dynamics of any team would work out, Cole needs to be a primary player not a role player, so putting her in with a group of 10 potential primaries in an opals team where shes coming off the bench and s not the go to player may not give the same results.
Many things go into choosing ( or should go into) a national , or any good team for that matter, its how will those players work together, we have all seen how a team of individual elites can get beaten by a team of players who only have one or two élites', Boomers are that prime example, so too the old days of Rangers with Wright.

Lots of players would expect different roles when playing for the national team than their domestic club. That's the nature of representative sport across the board.

Cole's strength, this season at least, is her scoring ability, so you'd expect more than straightforward role as a shooter off the bench if selected for the Opals.

I think it should all be about who are the best players available to pick, with fit only a real concern when selecting which naturalised, or the last 1-2 spots between similar level players.

WNBL LIFE MEMBERS
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2014/15 Jess Foley
2014/15 Suzy Batkovic
2014/15 Deanna Smith
2018/19 Steph Blicavs

I must have missed this one. Why has Steph been given life?

I'm guessing she has notched up game No. 300
(keep in mind how young she started with the Rangers, and I don't think she has missed a season since)

Bec Cole seemed to struggle that quarter (Q1) off all the hype.

Laurin Mincey doing Bec Cole things up in Townsville. She has 18.
And weirdly the Fire bench is outscoring the starters 31-7 atm

Is something a little missed up about Live Stats for the Bendigo game?

Wow Adelaide making a huge statement with that Sydney scoreline. Their starting five look really locked in.

Townsville finally getting big games out of their imports: Mincy tonight, Malloy last round, but they really need to figure out playing as a team without Batkovic. Worried about how much Garbin's game has regressed this season.

Wonder if Timms (from her WNBL show few weeks back) thinks the MVP race is close yet? Allen is great but I think Camel et all may want to say something about this season from Griffin. ;)

That Capitals side looking so stacked it's almost silly. Maclaren and Cubillo with less than five minutes in the game. It's impossible to play everyone.

"That Capitals side looking so stacked it's almost silly. Maclaren and Cubillo with less than five minutes in the game. It's impossible to play everyone."

Sheriffs minutes have been reduced to almost nothing since Tolo came back in, Rocci will be the same with Wallace now playing, so those others will be lucky to even suit up at this rate.

As for Townsville, they have relied on Batkovic for so long, that it has left others literally as props. She probably should have retired this season to let Townsville rebuild as this season it's been a disaster really.

A little bit of Griffin - 24,14,4 in 25minutes

So give Boomers the title now? They're doing this with Garrick not playing. Yeesh.

Canberra still the team to beat imo

It's close, but I think the Boomers have the better starters quality, even if Capitals have better depth. Perth on their day can probably match, but not on current form. Others (eg Adelaide) could be "banana peel" teams in finals if not careful (still can't work out how this Melbourne side lost to Sydney, what an outlier that game was).

Damn, what is the go with the Lynx???

Led 35-24 with 7mins to go in the second, and then let Sydney go on a 19-2 run in 6 minutes, which included five 3-pointers!!!

How can a quality team switch off like that, or is it rotations?

Those look like the teams for the finals, should be good.

Shame we couldn't see what was up in that Perth game. Weird scoreline

Weird scoreline, weird game.
Lynx played a solid quarter and then apparently decided they could sleepwalk through the rest of the game and still win.
Sydney, who basically have 3 starting quality players available to them (Snell, Tupaea, Smart) had all 3 of them fouled out, and still came scarily close to sending it to OT.

I don't know what's happened to the Lynx over the last few weeks. The early season version of the team would have blown the Flames away. Today they were lucky to win. Take away the Christmas tech foul bonanza and a couple of calls in crunch time that just happened to go in our favour (and they often just happen to) and Flames cause a boilover.
Asia was fantastic though. I don't want to take anything away from her game.
Mansfield showed some nice glimpses of her best form too.
Snelly was massive too. A bit too careless with the ball at times, but overall still an awesome game from her. Game 2 of a long road trip at her age and still doing everything out there ... I'm gonna miss her.

Luuuc, could it be a case of the other teams figuring out their game plan and them also being fatigued because of it being high-intensity pace-wise?

It shouldn't be fatigue given that this was our only game for the round, whereas Sydney were coming off a game vs Adelaide on Friday night. Somehow we didn't look any more energetic that them even in the 4th though when we should have been running them out of the gym.
My completely unsubstantiated theory is that it's 95% mental. Confidence is everything, and once you lose that it's hard to artificially play as if you are truly confident. McPhee seems a prime example of that. She is such a class player, but somehow she can't seem to buy a jumper anymore. I also feel like we're turning down too many perimeter shots in general.

Today we seemed to start off at a non-frantic pace, and it looked good. The 30 in the first quarter was a pretty low key 30, which is an impressive feat IMO. It wasn't manic, it wasn't lucky, it was good basketball.
I don't quite know what happened after that for it to go south so badly.
Maybe it is the cumulative effect of the season's workload catching up to everyone, because the usual energy levels were not there, but I would think that players at this level of conditioning wouldn't suffer from that. Someone who knows more about fitness might be able to enlighten me. Hopefully we just lost focus and started thinking we would cruise to the win, because at least that would be easily correctable.

This weekend without any travel, combined with our next game (Friday) being at home as well, came at a handy time I think. We still clearly have a lot to work on.

Awful news about Kristy Wallace's knee :'(

Capitals put out Townsville Fire but at devastating cost

^couldn't agree more, the WNBL season is almost done, both teams have managed without these players, and in the bigger picture is it(was it) really worth it. I blame coaches for pushing players to take the court before they are ready, but then again these players are old enough to make informed decisions, if they are so eager to get out that they cut short their rehab then thats a price they must be prepared to take.

sad about Wallace, she isnt even a year out from her injury, its actually barely 9 months, Blicavs just a year but shes also had three other ops in that year and a much more dramatic and extensive injury than Wallace, its a wonder the league does not bring in mandatory minimum 1 year rehabs for ACL players, after all its an insurance issue really

gotta feeling my idol , the favorite for mvp , is potw...

Baseless and very nasty allegation. But I'm sure you know better than all the medical specialists!

not really, coaches are always at the 'physios'to see when they can use these injured players, really why chance it unless they are 100% fit, Drs go on the injury not the fitness level, big difference between an injury healed enough for daily activity, to one thats ready to go full bore, if they were in fact fit to play that would mean they would not require to miss double headers, get their strength and fitness up before they take the court . not during, their in lies the issue. These players are not machines, hence why if it was made mandatory regardless of what the players or coaches want, that a full year off and external fitness assessment is required before they can retake the court , their would probably be less reinjuring themselves, this is their careers they are playing with, sometimes patience is a better option for all concerned.
No one wants to see any player injured like this and certainly not repeatedly

I haven't heard anything credible yet. Credible meaning straight from the mouth of anon #724507 who knows better than the experts in the field.

Ffs, had this huge post and this stupid device wiped it after moving off tab for two seconds.

ACL comebacks can be 9-12 months these days, Canberra had no reason to rush, have to give them benefit of doubts. Sucks for Wallace and hopefully she can bounce back.

If Suzy doesn't come back, does she still get a spot in TOTY? Or does one of Coffey/George/Tobin get in if needing a big?Allen-Cole-Taylor-Griffen look like locks.