After having an awesome middle session with my year 5 class on podcasting, I open up my email account eating my lunch and scroll through my usual crap.  I then decide to go to Ozhoopsboards and I noticed this topic about the Cairns Taipans being put into adminstration.  This was not good news people and I let my year five kids know.  One kid said to me “What does that mean?”  When I told him that means that the team could go under and not finish the season, his response was “That is pretty crap!”  An honest but blunt response!

I then found this article which also talks about the current situatioin. The thing that ticks me off about this whole situatioin is this quote:

He said the club was losing “hundreds of thousands” of dollars each season

If this is the case (and I am not doubting that it is) then why is he continuning to pump money into the team?  To me it smells a little bit more of a conspiracy theory.  I think that they were given the word that there was only going to be one team from Far North Queensland in the NBL next year and they just decided to pull the pin now.  I think that this is so irresponsible of the owners to allow the situation to develop into this type of a situations. 

In the above article it is also quoted that the Taipans are losing $800 000 a season!  If this is true, what the hell is going on?  $800 000 is not just a tax write off for some rich man.  That is a hell of a lot of money.

So once again the NBL is back to the drawing board.  They saved the Spirit and what will they do now if they can’t find a new owner?  Has a precendent been set?  It will be interesting to say the least.  Lets not make any bones about it – Sydney is much more important to the NBL than Cairns.  I love the Taipans and they have awesome fans, but they don’t have 4 million people. 

Will Nathan Jawai be able to chip in some money like Andrew Bogut did to make sure that his former team mates are getting paid?  The smartest man in this entire scenario is former assistant coach Aaron Fearne.  I am not sure who is paying Aaron (the Raptors or Nathan himself) but at least he still has a job.  Alan Black could be without one very very soon!

Welcome to another edition of Tuesday’s Random Rambles!  Here we go!

- Got to love the Gold Coast Blaze.  They get smashed on Wednesday night against the Spirit, win a close one against the Hawks on Friday night and get demolished by the 36ers on Sunday.  Later this week I am going to write a huge post about Daniel Joyce and my thoughts on him.  Good on the Blaze for winning their 2nd game of the year but some consistency wouldn’t go astray (apart from being consistenly bad!).

- The Melbourne Tigers celebrated 25 years in the NBL on Saturday night.  It is awesome to see that this club is still around after almost going broke a couple of years ago.  It has a direct link to their junior program which is awesome to see.  Some great photos were also taken from the night. 

- Mookie has informed me that Baron Davis has signed a 5 year footwear deal with growing footwear superpower Li-Ning.  This got me thinking – is the Asian footwear market a route that Australian players could take to earn some money?  I remember the old Pony days!  How unique it was!

- The Crocs apparently finished strongly against the Breakers on Saturday night but just didn’t get over the line.  When I looked at the boxscore, I was excited at first to notice Daniel Egan’s excellent productivity due to the fact that he is in my FNBL team.  Then I got more excited when I noticed Brad Williamson’s numbers because he is also on my FNBL team.  I then realised that Williamson was on my Injured Reserve and therefore his stats wouldn’t count for my team!  I am an idiot! 

- Don’t ask me how I found this but I John Rillie has posted the funniest clip of all time on Youtube featuring Andrew Gaze doing ‘That’s Gold!’  Funny Stuff

- Obviously Shane Heal didn’t racially abuse a fan in their game against the Spirit on Wednesday night.  I guess we will leave it at that but the Hammer was not a happy man on his snippet that was on Fox Sports on Friday night / Saturday.  He mentioned the Ozhoops Message Boards and was very short with the journalist.  I guess if you were accused of something you didn’t do, you wouldn’t be happy as well.

- Brendan Joyce and Daniel Joyce apparently didn’t win themsleves many fans in the game against the Hawks on Friday night.  A thread on the Ozhoopsboards has over 100 posts about it.   The guys at asaspace.com have an excellent post on this scenario and every year there is going to be a situation with Brendan Joyce coached teams.

- I saw an add on Fox Sports for the whole Movember thing.  They showed a snapshot of the ugliest moustache of all time – Sam McKinnon.  Is he doing again this year?

- Former Brisbane Bullets coach Joey Wright is coaching Seastar Apoel in Cyprus.  He took former Brisbane Bullets manager ‘Big Joe’ with him.  Big Joe has been blogging his adventures and they can be found here It is fair to say that it is a bit of a culture shock and things aren’t travelling to smoothly over there.  Fancy having to be scared for your lives after a basketball game.   Just read in the Courier Mail that Joey got the sack.  I guess that is the end of that! 

- Darren Ng once again is keeping his fans up to date with his life.  In this blog entry, he talks about his favourite foods and the Rihanna concert. 

- 36ers coach Scott Ninnis is hoping that people don’t see Julius Hodge as the saviour.  I have news for him: All 36ers fans are hoping that he is the saviour and the messiah rolled into one!

- Cairns coach Alan Black is not happy with how his team is fading out late in the game  Is the late fade outs anything to do with the fact that he has an old team that aren’t overly athletic?

- The whole Nathan Jawai health thing is still going and apparently it is not career threatening.  Hopefully it will all work out soon.  He is an awesome palyer and has a huge future in the game.

- I never knew that Patrick Mills was an AFL star as well.   What is the AFL’s loss is Basketball’s gain!

- Speaking of Patrick Mills, Brian Goorjian has came out and stated that he was the best player at the Olympic Games for the Boomers. 

- The Sydney Spirit have an awesome feature on their website called ‘Spirit Talk’  The latest edition has an interview with Drew Williamson.   To be honest, I am a bit of a fence sitter when it comes to this guy.  Sometimes I think that he is fantastic and other times I think that he has a tendancy to float in and out of games. 

- Who will be John Rillie’s player of the week on DJ Rod and JR on the OT?  If they had an award for most inconsistent import, it might go to Justin Bowen.  In the game against the 36ers, he had some respectable numbers but (19pts, 10rebs and 3asts) but turned the ball over six times.  In the same game Aaron Bruce had 14 assists.  His relative Cameron must be happy with that effort! 

Before we start I would like to thank the 489 people that my Google Analytics account tells me that has visited my site over the past three weeks.  For those who don’t know anything about this tool, it is well worth checking it out.  It provides you with day to day analysis of visits to your site and where people are from. It is well worth the investment in time.

Anyway, after my Russell Hinder post the other day and discovering that he played some college ball at the University of San Fransisco, it got me thinking about this – how many NBL players (currently on NBL rosters) have American college basketball experience?  For those who are not aware of the college structure in the USA, Wikipedia provides a good analysis of the conferences and how they mesh together. 

Now back to my original question.  I am not just talking about NCAA Division 1.  I am talking Division 2, 3, NAIA and JUCO.  I am also not talking about naturalised Australians in this list.  Here is the list that I have come up with.

Adelaide:  Luke Schenscher, Aaron Bruce and Ryan Kersten

Cairns: Gary Boodnikoff, Ian Crosswhite, Scott Cook, Dean Brebner, Kerry Williams and Matt Smith

Gold Coast: Ben Melmeth

Melbourne: Adrient Sturt, Daniel Johnston, Bo Westover, David Barlow and Tommy Greer

New Zealand: Tim Behrendoff, Tony Ronaldson, Kirk Penney, Thomas Abercrombie, Corey Webster, CJ Bruton and Adam Tanner

Perth:  Adam Caporn, Luke Kendall, Paul Rogers, Alex Loughton and Stephen Weigh

South Dragons: Mark Worthington and Daniel Dillion

Sydney: Clint Reed, Matthew Knight, Damian Martin, Drew Williamson, Luke Martin and Jason Smith

Townsville: John Rillie, Russell Hinder,

Wollongong: Cameron Tragardh, Rhys Martin and Larry Davidson

That is a pretty extensive list!  I am sure that I missed some.  If my mathematics is correct (and I am sure that it is) 31.66% of players who are currently on NBL rosters have attended colleges in the USA in some form.  Some have attended schools for the entire four years (Matthew Knight, Luke Schenscer and Damian Martin), some have had outstanding careers at NCAA Division 2 schools (Mark Worthington), some have had good NAIA careers (Scott Cook), some have attended large schools for short periods of time (Tony Ronaldson and Ben Melmeth) and some have had outstanding JUCO careers (CJ Bruton) 

So what is that attracts Australians to go to college in the USA and coaches in the USA attraction to Australian players?  From a players point of view I think it is the fact that you can live the best part of your long lives overseas and playing the game that you love.  You also get a free education and see another country.  From a coahces point of view, you generally get players with good fundemental skills who enjoy the game.  Coaches from mid major or small schools have absolutley no chance in getting ‘big time’ USA players whilst they have a very good chance of getting a good young Australian recruit.  Patrick Mills at St Marys is the prime example of this. 

I still remember watching Andrew Gaze at Seton Hall for that fantastic Final Four run.  I also remember hearing about two young Australians (I was 11 at the time and they were 18!) called Luc Longley (attending New Mexico State) and Andrew Vlahov (attending Stanford)  These guys were really the trend setters for the young players of today.  I am sure that there are hundreds of guys playing college hoops in the USA at the moment.  The risk is that you really have to go to a school where you can showcase your talents.  I have heard stories of many young aussies who have gone over and played a specific role for their team and have actually returned worse players.

So in summary, if I was in year 12 and wanted to go to university, I would not hesitate to go to the right college in the USA and play some basketball.  These university degrees are worth thousands of dollars and set people up for the future and have the times of their lives.  They just need to make sure that their degrees are recognised in Australia.  If not…..

So all basketball fans around Australia now have 35 million reasons to be happy.  I am sure that everyone has heard the news and knows what is going on.  All I can say is ‘WOW’ and that this is awesome for Australian basketball.  But as I sit here at 7:45am on Sunday morning, I am wondering about the amount of teams in the new league. The magic number being thrown around is 8. I personally feel that 10 is going to be better. My ten team league would be:

Perth
Melbourne
Adelaide
South Dragons
Sydney
Gold Coast
Brisbane
Townsville
Cairns
New Zealand

I know that this is going to russle some feathers with Hawks fans (that was pretty funny, I didn’t even mean it to be!!!) but you can not possibly leave out Cairns or Townsville.

Anyway, I am off to the Bakery to get some bread! More on this tommorow (or maybe this afternoon if my wife lets me on the computer)

Ok, so I am back!  I am currently listening to OH-FM #12: Eight Is Enough from Ozhoops Of course the major topic of the Podcast is the NBL reform. He was talking about the similarities between the A League and the new NBL. The magic number that he keeps mentioning is 8. He was mentioning the possiblity of only having one team in North Queensland.  Derek is not obviously keen on this as he is a huge Crocs fan but he is being a realist.  He makes a point about the fact if Cairns goes, their fans will not automatically follow the new team (and I guess the same goes for if the Crocs go)  He also made an interesting point about whilst Cairns and Townsville aren’t the most popular markets in regards to population, they are the teams which are drawing the most money and have a good business model.  He also talks about the possiblity of not having an Adelaide team due to financial woes in the past 12 months.  I think that it would be disastorous if the league does not have a presence in South Australia.  They have a great venue and keen fans. 

In this article from Fox Sports made the following statement:

Thodey and Basketball Australia interim chief executive Scott Derwin stressed the revamped national league competition for 2009-10 would again start in October.

The independent review advocated a minimum of eight clubs, though Thodey and Derwin suggested that was not set in stone.

However, they suggested financial viability rather than geography was likely to be the major factor in determining which areas were represented.

Thodey said he hoped the criteria for inclusion in the new national league would be finalised before the end of this year

If this is the case, then there is no way that a new league could not have the Crocs and the Taipans.  It sounds like that I am a huge Crocs and Taipans fan but in all honesty I am not.  I just think that they have great fans who consistenly go to games, so therefore they should be rewarded with a team in any new league. 

On another track, what is FIBA’s take on all of this?  When the huge A League review happened, there was a lot of input from FIFA and they were active in the way that they helped the new league promote themesleves.  But FIBA seems to be very silent about all of this.  Isn’t Australia a member of FIBA?  Do they even care about the game in our country?  If they do, they should be flowing some money back through into our country to help promote and sustain the game. 

My only worry about this whole $35 million thing from Fox Sports is the lack of mainstream media coverage on Free to Air TV.  Super 14 and A League is only on Fox Sports and there is very little media coverage.  Unfortunately the NBL isn’t really in the greatest bargining position and $35 million is a lot of money!

Firstly a joke – Why did the man with one hand cross the road?  To get to the 2^nd

hand shop!  In my real life I am a primary school teacher in a school in western Queensland  called St George State School.  I was crabby at my class the other day and asked my kids to tell me a joke to cheer me up.  That joke was told to me by a 9 year old Aboriginal boy who has severe learning problems.  I thought it was the funniest thing that I had heard in ages.  Then some how I started to think about the Cairns Taipans and thought that they could do with some things from the second hand shop!

The Cairns Taipans have had a slow start to the season.  They had a reasonably busy off season, losing Nathan Jawai to the ‘Big Show’ (not the WWE wrestler – the NBA) and not retaining their import who played out the end of last season after the whole Rashad ‘I like to do some illegal things and carried a groin injury for a while’ Tucker.  Last season was an overly successful one for the Taipans either.  The lost Martin Cattalini for a long period and Darnell Mee for a large part of the season as well. 

Taipans fans were hopeful that this was going to be a great year for them.  The season hasn’t exactly started in spectacular fashion and their ‘back to back’ losses against the Wollongong Hawks last week is not a good sign for the Taipans faithful. 

So what is the problem with the Taipans.  Here is my take on it:

-         Losing Stephen Black with his ongoing back problems is huge.  Black isn’t everybody’s ‘cup of tea’ as a player but one thing is for sure – the guy has guts and plays hard.  He is a quality Australian player who is a threat offensively at all times.

-         The rapid decline in form of Darnell Mee and Martin Cattalini.  After watching the game on Fox Sports the other night against the Hawks, it is painfully obvious that Cattalini has lost a step or four.  He looks extremely slow and seems to be forcing the action offensively.  Mee was basically out nearly all of last season after he injured his ankle in playing for Australia against New Zealand.  He then gets to go to the Olympic camp but was cut before he even got a game against Iran.  Mee is on the wrong side of 30 and can’t have many years left.

-         Their offense is extremely predictable.  Without Black it seems that there is not a lot of creativity at the offensive end.  Larry Abney is the ultimate workhorse but struggles to create anything offensively by himself and lives of the garbage of others. 

-         They are not a great defensive team either. Dave Thomas is a lock down defender and Mee (if he is in the right frame of mind) is as well.  Scott Cook seems to be a great on ball defender as well.  Their team does not seem to have a defensive mind set and allows some teams to run up some big scores against them. 

So how are the Taipans going to turn it around.  If my name was Alan Black, this is what I would do:

-         Pray to god that Stephen’s back will allow him to play again.

-         Park Martin Cattalini on the low block and allow him to use the remaining athleticism that he has left against slow four men or small three men.  He is still a threat who would feature on the scouting reports of every team.

-         Continue to play Scott Cook.  I am a big fan and have watched him play for a long time.  He is getting to the line very very regulary and converts at a good percentage.  He is very steady with the ball and has the potential to lead the team.

-         Try to invent a time machine that will allow Dwayne Vale to step back into last year and transform that play into the 2008 – 09 season.  He was pretty good in patches last year.

-         Think seriously (especially if Stephen Black is out) about my import combination.  Both Dave Thomas and Larry Abney are quality imports but are they write for the Taipans?  If Black is gone, I feel that the Taipans need a dead set scorer (e.g Julius Hodge or somebody in the Willie Farley mode J ) and I would get rid of Thomas.  That is a big call and would cost them some money but it might have to be done.

So overall – is it panic stations for the Taipans yet?  I don’t think so but it could easily become that way.  Is Alan Black safe in his job?  I think that he is for now but if they don’t make a serious playoff run (and I don’t see them getting the better of the Dragons, Tigers, Breakers or Wildcats) then I think that the Cairns management will have to have a good hard think about their coaching personal. 

An edit: I just looked at the NBL ladder and see that the Taipans are coming in 6th place.  I honestly feel that they are still on struggle street a bit.  They really need to pick up their game.