Still no media guide or details on broadcast schedule either.

I don't hope it's gone. We need the WNBL. The talent is there and the quality of imports as good as any time in it's history.

Just sad to see the state it's been run.

Any sort of preview anywhere? What do people reckon are best lineups for each team?

As the saying goes, if there's nothing available, may as well do it yourself. Had a go, let me know what you think. Rosters based on the Tracker, so hopefully that was accurate.


Adelaide Lightning

Seekamp - Talbot - Nicholson - Turner* - Langhorne*
Hurst - Elsworthy - Novosel+ - Kaser - Brook - Hodges

Great looking starting lineup, Hurst/Hodges provide plenty of experience and know how that should help counter Novosel being out for rest of season.

Prediction: 3rd


Bendigo Spirit
Lavey - Wehrung - Grays* - Mijovic - Tobin*
Heal - Wilson - Tessari - Froling+ - Richards - Skinner

Probably slightly weaker than last season but can lean on their good imports to be a darkhorse again as before with a strong Aussie back court.

Prediction: 7th


Canberra Capitals
Epoupa* - Froling - Nurse* - Griffin - Tolo
Rocci - Cubillo - Wallace+ - Potter - Delaney - Reuf?

Looking a little more human than last season's super team, but still a formidable starting 5. Be interesting to see how their loaded back court works, especially if Wallace comes back late in season.

Prediction: 1st


Melbourne Boomers
Allen* - Cunningham* - Garrick - George - Magbegor
Conti - Farnworth - D'Andgelo - Beck - Davidson - Purcell

Probably the best looking roster, the only question really is how they all fit and work together. Should've won last season.

Prediction: 1st


Perth Lynx
Ebzery - Atkins* - Schwagmeyer - Payne - McGee-Stafford*
Mansfield - Whittle - Allen - J.Williams - Burrows - N.Williams

All about dat offence. Another deep looking team (to 8 at least) but same questions on how it all fits together but if it does, watch out.

Prediction: 4th


Southside Flyers
Mitchell - Cole - O'Hea - Blicavs - Russell*
Clydesdale - Reid - Rowe - Pizzey - Maley - Tomlinson

Plenty of talent in the starting five and former Gems backing up. Have to wait and see how they all mesh together but combined with the off season shenanigans I think they'll be hot/cold all season.

Prediction: 5th


Sydney Flames
Wilson - Smart* - Kunek - Planeta - Scherf
Tuhpea - Graham - Kuster* - Greaves - McSpadden - O'Hehir - Hodge

Another strong looking squad overall, even with the retirement of Snelly they look as good or better than last year. Will need everyone fit and firing to compete with the other "star" teams but could easily make finals.

Prediction: 6th


Townsville Fire
Vanloo* - Cocks - Magden - Garbin - Bishop
Gaze - Carleton* - Young - Boag - Aokuso

Even with a star like Bishop I think the Fire are still in a post-Batgirl funk and wont be able to get it together cohesively to match the other sides.

Prediction: 8th



Finals is going to be any combination of the top 6 teams I think, there's a clear gap in their roster talent to the next two sorry and between themselves form and injury could easily determine who's making the playoffs. The quality in this league is still impressive and if most of the imports fire it's only going to look better.

In doing this, I did notice that we seem to have an abundance of guards in the league. Hopefully that can translate in a few years time into some good Opals options.

Nice one!

Great write up. If Lynx doesn't do well this season I feel that the coach will be sacked.

Which games this week will be broadcasted?

Despite the WNBL's tweets this week like

Just TWO days until tip-off!
Are you ready?
We are.

Thanks for your thoughts, Waves2Lynx - though I see you put both the Caps & Boomers to finish 1st and nobody 2nd. They're hard to split I agree. This season the Boomers look to have the edge in talent & depth, but same as the last several years it remains to be seen whether that translates to success.
Even the Flyers have a ton of talent, so it should be a good contest for 4th spot, but it feels to me like Melbourne, Canberra & Adelaide are a clear top 3. Much like last season. The Lynx & Flyers could both be competitive with them if they get their chemistry right.

As a Lynx fan I don't know that we're going to win a title any time soon, but I still love what coach Stewart does in terms of game style and giving his players the green light to just go out and ball. It tends to come undone in the finals because the depth of talent is not quite there, but IMO it's the best basketball in the WNBL to watch. We are blessed to have Ariel Atkins on the team this season. She's 100% legit - although currently hampered by a back injury, which 20 hours on a plane won't help - so she might not hit the ground running, especially now that the WNBA finals have gone to a game 5 decider tomorrow morning. McGee-Stafford is also a player I really like, but she's unlikely to put too many points on the board for us. Defensively she will be a great tag team with Maddie Allen, but neither of them can really play the 4 unfortunately.
If we still had Steindl this this team could do some real damage, but I feel like - as usual - we're one front court player short of being legit.

As a Spirit member I believe we are a better team than last year.
19 Tobin V 20 Tobin - Probably arguing less effective due to more scouting against having played NBL1 with Lavey, Wilson and Richards so call it the same. Call it a 0.
19 Wehrung V 20 Wehrung – After Uni Games gold and a good NBL1 I'd back her in to be improved. Call this a +0.2.
19 Tessari V 20 Tessari – No reason to think she would not be even just a little improved but certainly no reason to think she has gone backwards. Call this a +0.1.
19 Turner (or no import!) V 20 Grays – Have not seen Grays in the flesh yet but would have to be pretty awful not to be an upgrade here! Going for +0.8 because not only was Turner pretty awful she disrupted the team as a whole for the few games she was here.
19 Hurst V 20 Wilson – Hurst was good for us last year but Wilson is at least as good if not better and had an league MVP NBL1 season so +0.1.
19 Payne V 20 Ernst (Mijovic) – Payne was terrific the last couple of years and a loss no doubt, but Ernst gives us some much-needed height and her outside shooting is not that much short of Payne’s so +0.1.
19 Tomlinson V 20 Richards – You mean we get to bring Gabe in off the bench? Gabe is not the rim protector that Lou was but is much more of an offensive weapon due to her being much stronger (Tomlinson was pushed around too easily) and spent the winter with Tobin/Wilson/Lavey at Braves so +0.4
19 Whittle V 20 Skinner – After a great couple of first games I really did not understand why Whittle didn’t get more court time through the year and was the one most affected by the ill-fated inclusion of Turner so without much knowledge of Skinner I could go -0.2 here.
19 McLean V 20 Heal – Shame to see Cass injured, she really gave it 100% when on court last season and I always love that type of player so a lot depends on Heal’s attitude coming off the bench so because of my conservative nature I am going -0.2 until Heal shows me she has "bought in" but talent wise this could easily be a plus.
19 Wild V 20 Lavey – I know this is not a direct swap (case of Lavey moving into Wehrung’s starting spot and Wehrung moving to bench but I wanted to make it easier to compare so left the 3 at start of list matching up on themselves). Wild was OK and I know everyone loves to bag out Lavey (more so when getting selected in Opals team) but this has to go down as a plus, +0.4.
That leaves a total of 1.7 and whilst an improved team does not mean a rise up the ladder because every other team may have improved but I think we are a much better balanced team than last year and settled with everyone arriving (as opposed to 2nd import missing at start of season and then being replaced with an ill fitting one that left after a few games). I think the depth is much better than last year and hopefully York is prepared to use that (as opposed to Pritchard), so hopefully we won’t suffer the same fadeout we did at the end of last season and can maintain a finals charge. Go Spirit!

The WNBL Show Podcast
https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode/443817

Basket Case Podcast
https://www.spreaker.com/user/carolwical/bc-6-1

Roy Ward's Season Preview in The Age
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/basketball/adelaide-canberra-southside-frontrunners-as-wnbl-season-tips-off-20191010-p52ziu.html

Media Guide is now up on WNBL.com.au

Broadcast-wise, Canberra vs Adelaide is the Foxtel game for this week (a good choice), and all 4 other games will be live streamed via the WNBL website

Great that they're finally releasing all this info. Better late than never.

@Luuuc, yeah I noticed that only earlier today haha. Think I had Canberra 1st/Melbourne 2nd if that counts for anything (laughing at my bad takes by end of season probably). Agree with you about Perth's playstyle. Watching Sami and Williams was the peak I think. Adelaide are another team I enjoy watching. Canberra on a run look unstoppable. Tbf, not really any team I dislike in this league, though would rank Melbourne last on who I'd want to have success. Sorry Boomers fans :P

Love the hype for TTFKADR, they've got the talent just have to get it to work.

Think Sydney is being underrated, they're not going to be as bad as last season even if they don't have the talent that screams out "star". Continuity goes a long way.

I think the talent in this league is fine. If all teams have all their players available there's going to be a lot of really good players starting on the bench.

MVP predictions: all about the imports. Allen or Nurse favourite. Depending on how they settle and their team successes could easily see Atkins or Turner win it too. Hell even Epoupa or Tobin could be outsiders for it. Griffin or Bishop again would be the only Aussies I think with a chance.

For this round: Adelaide, Melbourne, Southside, Canberra, Perth

Think the Top 4 would be;
1. Adelaide
2. Canberra
3. Perth
4. Melbourne/Southside

Is the Perth v Sydney game being streamed?

Oh, I thought only from round 3 that they are all streamed.

I was a bit worried with what I saw from Kuster in the pre-season game against China B. Didn't see tonight's game but doesn't look like she made much impact.

Looked like a good opening game. Break out from Brook really good for Adelaide with Hodges out testing their depth. If they've developed another player wow, watch out.

Sydney looked like some players had good games based on the boxscore. Just about fitting it altogether into a winnable performance. I was more surprised about Smart not starting tbh.

Adelaide look very good. Planeta has always been a very good player. As Adelaide's imports get more settled - look out. Caps v Lightning GF series again IMO.

I'm expecting big things from the Lynx this year

Flyers stream is working for me. Timms is good in commentary, actually talking tactics

Lynx played really well. Looks like it's a competition between Canberra and Perth with Adelaide a close 3rd.

WNBL website is broken. Live stats doesn't work. They need to incorporate the WNBL within the NBL app.

Stream worked well, and commentators were solid. Need more stats graphics though, and more talk about stats as it's not so obvious to the viewer.

Langhorne not on lightning boxscore ?

Langhorne missed the game with soreness

It's going to be hard to even out the teams in the WNBL. Some of them just don't have that much cash to spend, so the only way to equalise would be to restrict the spending of many of the teams, which would mean losing a lot of talented players from the league and paying some others less than they deserve. Not ideal in a sport where we're wanting these women to be paid as well as possible. I do agree that it's not a fair fight these days though. That's not ideal either.

Lynx looked great early but after quarter time it was not pretty for anyone. Other than perhaps Nes'eya Williams, who played a very nice game and earned herself significant court time.
Schwagmeyer-Belger is looking lean and mean this season, great to have Mansfield healthy again, and I expect Maddi Allen to progress from last season as well, so there's improvement in the existing players. McGee-Stafford looked good for game 1 after not much time with the team. Just needs to dial it back a smidge when defending shots in the post or else she'll find herself in frequent foul trouble.
Once Atkins gets here and settles in this is going to be a potent team. I don't know if that will translate into consistently beating the best teams but it's going to be a lot of fun to watch.

Flyers vs Fire
http://control.5stream.com/player/?id=48416&s=0

Spirit vs Boomers
http://control.5stream.com/player/?id=48417&s=0
(**unwatchable**)

I don't see how Tupaea is in the opals mix...


Agreed, mind boggling

There is no salary cap in the WNBL. It is not a fair competition.

Lol
They get paid SFA , what would you cap them to, playing for free lol

It seems the record holder for player of the week is best player in round 1.
Kelsey Griffin