Why no games this weekend?

FIBA break.

Should really be opals camp minimum, wasted opportunity.

Dekeiya Cohen and the Capitals have parted ways, effective immediately.

Living in Canberra...

I hear the Caps will announce the replacement import tomorrow...

Complete now.
Only weak spot really is 3 pt shooting guards.


MRocci-Conti-Loughridge*
Cole-ARocci-Hollingsworth
Thornton-Puoch
Blicavs-Ernst-Pinaeu
Jackson-Bishop-Griffiths


*out for season.

Round 4 games:


Wed 6:00pm - Adelaide vs Canberra (ESPN)

Thu 6:30pm - Southside vs Sydney (9Now)

Fri 7:00pm - Townsville vs Bendigo (9Now)
Fri 6:30pm - Perth vs Melbourne (9Now)

Sat 7:00pm - Adelaide vs Southside (9Now)

Sun 4:30pm - Sydney vs Bendigo (9Now)


All times are local.

Flames have already released Stephanie Bairstow from her contract.

Nicole munger to caps.

Only reason Bairstow was taken was Heals relationship with Rucker. As she trains with Rucker. This relationship has given 3 other players this year. Allan, Rutanno and Bowyer. All players not getting any time. Unfortunately Bairstow good for NBL1 not even close to WNBL.

Going to be a long season for Flames.

Sydney 0-5 after the weekend .... chop chop

Tbf donnelly and crawshaw are good local DPs, not all rucker/heal connection with Rotunno, bowyer and Allan.
The big wtf is Juffermans, rotting at Coe when Sydney could be developing her, they desperately need a young centre.
Gordon also at Coe should be developing in wnbl by now and the Coe should have already given scholarships to Metcalfe, jackson and crook on top of Portlock, the most recent scholarship holder.

Totally agreed Weedy. IDK who's making the decision for the COE kids but they are getting it wrong. We have a world champs next year for U19 and the experience they could get playing and training with WNBL teams is far higher than being at home for 9weeks or playing in AUS school champs atm. Someone needs to wake up

Weedy the two likely places those players would go is Canberra and Sydney. You really expect those two coaches to develop talent? The pathway Juffermans is on hasn't slowed Melbourne or Borlase. Also the reason the comp is soo good this year is because it’s made up of the right level talent. There is no way those players should be able to get any meaningful minutes if the league is what it should be. And it is closer to being that than it has in a long time. Deep top level talent throughout is what all the teams that truly have a chance to win it. Two teams at the bottom didn’t get the memo about recruiting a deep team with relative WNBA talent in your starting line up. No more getting away with a team of fillers and role players. Get off your wallet and go get Tolo, Smith, Kunek and Allen how’s that for 4 of your starting 5.

If you think the league has talent top to bottom , you are kidding yourself.
Probably 12+ players that are not wnbl level throughout the 8 teams.


Also no

Nakkasoglu
Garrick
Allen
Kunek
Horvat
Garbin
Magbegor
Smith
Tolo

Almost an entire team overseas.


Injuries/outs
Tupaea
Purcell


Imports mixed bag
From young/mabrey to Ryan.
Etc


Poor scouting, atleast 3 ncaa returnees not selected ended up going to lower levels of europe because of 2 year wnbl contracts to 10th/11th man benchwarmers.

Not sure the logic of scheduling the Adelaide game this week on a Wednesday night, infact any WNBL game on a Wednesday night! Sure hope no-one complains about the crowd numbers. 487 is probably a good number considering.

The picture zooming in during plays thing returned during the Southside vs Sydney broadcast. Anytime the ball entered the three point line, you would suddenly get a close up of wherever the ball was. Why would you switch vision DURING plays? It makes it more difficult to pay attention to what's going on.

Sydney crumbled in the 4th quarter for the second time this season and I just don't think they have enough talent in their lineup to sustain 40 minutes of good quality play. They're putting in the effort but the bench is really poor and the starters are forcing things down the stretch.

Shyla Heal is clearly struggling with her offensive role at the moment and something needs to change here. My idea would be to run the offence more through Mangakahia and let Heal focus on regaining her shooting stroke (3/20 from three so far) because that's her real value add to the team.

I enjoyed watching Puoch play defence but her offence needs A LOT of work, starting with her finishing which is not that good for somebody with her size and athleticism. Also interesting to note that Southside went on their big run with Monique Conti playing alongside Rebecca Cole in the backcourt.

Please could someone tell kate gaze to stop screaming into the microphone, hurts my ears

Some random thoughts on last night's games:

1) I thought Bendigo guarded Steph Reid well and this probably won them the game. She still got 8 assists, but Bendigo scrambled the pick and rolls frequently. Reid needs to develop a better outside jumper otherwise she will be limited at higher levels of the game.

2) Kristy Wallace looks increasingly comfortable at point guard and this will be good for her international career. It's nice to have additional ball handling options for the Opals.

3) I don't get what Perth is trying to do with Lauren Scherf. Last season she was a steady 4th/5th offensive inside option who cleaned up the boards. This season she's shooting from the outside and playmaking more, but isn't particularly efficient at either of those. With their offseason talent exodus, a more prominent role in the offence is to be expected but bar rebounding, she's not really good at her current role. They should cut down on the threes at least.

3) could be that it's a part of her game that she wants to work on, or that the coaching staff want her to work on, possibly with a view to making her more likely to be picked regularly for international duty.

This season she's shooting from the outside and playmaking more, but isn't particularly efficient at either of those.

Opals current 4-5 position

6'2 Garbin 28
6’3 Smith 26
6’4 Magbegor 23
6’4 George 33
6’5 Tolo 33
6’5 Jackson 41

(Hard to see the bottom 3 going much further than 2024 Paris)


Who out of these 3 is next C up?
6’4 Aokuso 24
6’5 Scherf 26
6’5 Bunton 29

Jackson's retired.

Not really, she said on 2 podcasts paris is a possibility.
I wouldn't select her but sandy might.

Great game in Townsville. The Sydney/Southside game was frustrating, and I'd love to start a whinge jar and put $1 in it every time Keely Froling has a sook about something. She's almost unbearable to watch.

For all of Southside's alleged frontcourt depth (I possibly wouldn't have known this without the commentators' input), they looked pretty average without Kayla Thornton. Possibly because she's the only good interior defender they have. I don't think even LJ would have made much of a difference (btw commentators, you don't need to constantly repeat that LJ is the GOAT. WE KNOW)

Borlase reminds me of Penny Taylor off the dribble. High praise I know, but the way she gets to the basket and the way she finishes - it's not something we usually see from Australian female basketballers. Would like to see some more outside shooting from her, even though it would probably detract from her freakish 62.5% FG shooting.

Southside led early through a very good full court press and Adelaide missing shots. I think Southside only had 8 players and it was hot. When Adelaide got their game going it was very good. Well attended game the home crowd got right behind the Lightning too.

Good to see Anneli Maley's jumpshot developing nicely. Flames crumbled again in the second half with remarkably poor free throw shooting inflating the margin of defeat. Turning Jocelyn Willoughby into primarily a jump shooter didn't work that well, though Bendigo's D was partially responsible for that. At least Shyla Heal's jumpshot kinda turned up today.

Team of the week has no guards, how does that work?
Sara Blicavs (189)
Anneli Maley (189)
Cayla George (193)
Kelsey Griffin (188)
Jacinta Monroe (196)
That is not a "team" of the week, that is just the 5 best performed players according to stats.

No mention of 'The Age' article from Roy Ward and the abuse Maley received at Townsville on the weekend?

Pretty sure that crowd 'abuse' was in response to Maley hurling Samuelson on the floor late in the 2nd Qtr. I did hear that the abuse was that she has ugly tattoos and runs funny. Apparently, that constitutes misogyny these days.

I suspect the alleged abuse was phrased in a cruder way than "you have ugly tattoos and run funny". Regardless, it's not cool to insult players even if they're involved in on court incidents that one is unhappy with.

https://wnbl.basketball/blog/news/wnbl-incident-update/

Seebohm getting fined is really fked up, wnbl would have never done anything if he didn't say something. Would have been swept under rug again.

Judge for yourself - Maley should have a case to answer to and probably should have been ejected from the TSV game. Ironically if she had been ejected she probably would not have been abused, go figure!!!

https://twitter.com/BasketballAu/status/1600328434810761216

I was in Townsville for Spirit game on Friday night & I was shocked about how many clearly alcohol affected people were in attendance at the game. Not a great look or promoting a family friendly environment at all, there was some absolutely foul & vulgar language coming out of the Suzy Deck for most of the night aimed at Spirit players.

The WNBL has released this statement after their investigation into Townsville Fire crowd behaviour in the Townsville vs Bendigo game on 2/12

"The Basketball Australia integrity unit has closed its investigation into inappropriate behaviour from WNBL spectators at Townsville Entertainment Centre on Friday, 2 December 2022. The JCU Townsville Fire, and all WNBL clubs, have been reminded of their obligation to follow gameday safety and security protocols that ensure a safe environment for WNBL athletes and officials."

I assume this is a slap on the wrist for Townsville for not dealing with abusive randoms better but nothing more. By security protocols, I assume they mean ejecting abusive spectators from the game.