I am the first to admit that when Joe Ingles first entered the NBL, I wasn’t the biggest fan of his.  He came in with huge wraps and I thought that some of them were a little bit underserved.  That impression lasted all of about 10 days. 

Joe is currently in his third season in the NBL and has seen his team go through a lot of ups and downs.  He saw his superstar player turned coach (Mark Price) get the sack early in his rookie season, to be taken over by a player coach (Shane Heal) for about almost one and a half seasons, have an interm head coach (Guy Malloy) for around half a season and now have a new head coach this season (Brian Goorjian).  All of these coaching changes have had Joe playing different roles and it is a credit to him that he was able to adjust to each scenario. 

When Joe was a rookie in the league, he was a very good player but did not have an overall complete and polished game.  Whilst his game is far form polished now, it is much improved from his rookie season.  His descion making with the ball is fantastic and he can be relied upon to handle the ball against pressure effectively. 

I actually thought last year for a while that his game was going a little bit backwards and he was not progressing as most NBL fans would have liked.  I came to the conclusion that the reason I was feeling this way was that he was playing more of a 1/2 guard with Shane Heal as the coach and asked to play a little bit more with the ball in his hands and get shots for others.  Last season his asssits jumped to 4.9 per game as opposed to 3.0 the season before.  I have to admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of ‘this Joe Ingles’ and was a little bit perplexed about the whole scenario.

The best thing that could have happened to Joe was the fact that he won a spot on the Olympic team.  He spent the entire off season playing and preparing for the Olympic games.  Whilst he wasn’t a huge contributor, he certainly seemed to enjoy the experience of going hard against the guys at practice each day and competing at that level.  He was left off the roster after the off season tour a couple of years ago.  It was good to see him recover and make the final roster.  He pulled his name out of the draft last year and that was a good thing in my opinion. 

He has certainly had some good numbers this year.  His game seems to have gone to a different level playing for Brian Goorjian.  As every basketball pundit is aware, Brian Goorjian coached teams: a) play defense and b) shoot the 3 ball.  He seems to be extremely confident in his own abilities and is playing the game at a different level than what he used to.

So what will a NBA team get if they draft him?  They will get an athletic 2/3 man who has good size and a good feel for the game.  He is a pretty good ball handler, makes good decisions and seems to have an awesome attitude.  What will they not get if they draft him?  They won’t get a lock down defender who will flat out be able to stop people.  Lets not forget people that he is 6″8′ in the USA scale.  That is pretty tough.

I was talking to my friend and fellow co host of the TO Grandmaster Funk the other day about this scenario: Can you imagine if Joe Ingles was at St Marys or any other college and the damage that he would do to opontents?   Whilst Mills is outstanding (and nobody can doubt this) Ingles is larger, more athletic and more of an NBA body.  I am a fan of Brad Newley and thought that he had a good Olympic campagain.  I just think in the long run, Ingles has more to offer than Newley.

So NBA pretendor?  Certianly not!  NBA contendor?  I will say yes but like all things NBA draftish, it all depends on where he is drafted.  If he can get a 1st round pick, I think that he is in for good things.  If he goes in the 2nd round, it could get a little messy!  Only time will tell I guess!

When I was doing my research for my post on the influence of college basketball on the NBL I went to each teams website and looked at the player lists and noted some of the obvious ones that I defintely knew (e.g Mark Worthington, Luke Kendall etc) and then went through the rest of the players one by one and checked if their biographies listed college experience.  When I got to the South Dragons list I noticed that there was a player on that list by the name of Daniel Dillon . I had absolutley no clue who this guy was, so I clicked on his biography and I was amazed to find out that he was:

1. A young Australian
2. Attended the University of Arizona for 4 years!

Anybody who knows anything about college basketball knows about the University of Arizona as they toured Australia a lot.  I remeber as a young lad of 14 or 15 sitting at the Auchenflower Basketball Stadium in Brisbane and watching Derek Rucker, Leroy Loggins and Andre Moore take on an Arizona squad featuring Damon Studimore and Khalid Reeves.  In short, Arizona is a powerhouse!

So I did a google search on Daniel Dillon and came up with some interesting stuff.  My google search came up with an article on his arrest for suspected DUI in 2007. I also found out that he was a member of Australian Mens World University Games team in 2005. After going to his profile at yahoo I was very interested to see that during his senior year at Arizona, he averaged 14.4 minutes per game.  So this guy wasn’t just a scrubber who sat on the bench.  He actually played minutes!

So last Wednesday night, I thought that I might have a chance to see this guy play some minutes.  As we are all aware, the Dragons blew the 36ers off the court and he saw some of his first court time for the year.  I have seen some snapshots on ESPN and Fox Sports of the Dragons training.  I saw this young guy running around with ‘Yannick Noah’ hair and it turned out to be Daniel. 

After perusing Daniel Dillon profile again, I noticed that he actually went to North Laurel High School in London, Kentucky in Year 12.  This is an interesting route that not a lot of young Australian’s go down.  Also according to his profile, he was a three time All Australian from under 16’s to under 18’s. The other thing that I noticed on his profile was his tough pose that all of the Dragons players did on their profiles.  He also has good size for a guard and seems to have reasonably quick.

So it will be interesting to see how this guy goes.  He certainly seems to have a good pedigree and will fit into the Brian Gorjian mold of player (e.g get after it defensively).  I wonder how much influence his assistant coach at Arizona Mike Dunlap had over his signing with the Dragons.  Not much I think!

You have got to love this man (Jalen Rose).  I used to love the whole ‘Fab Five’ thing and I even named my son after him (my wife loved the name and she wanted to spell it Jaylen but I stood my ground)  I stumbled upon this article from the Sportingnews which ranks him in the all time greatest players to play for Michigan – which of course I would agree with!

So I couldn’t think of anything to post today (it is Friday and I am posting this on Saturday), so I decided to make this a bit of a mixed bag of random basketball stuff.  So here we go:

- Firstly, nobody can be overly suprised at the axing of 36ers import Mark Tyndale.  In the game against the Dragons last Wednesday night, he looked out of place and slow.  I am sure that every 36ers fan will now be demanding that their management step up and sign the golden child Julius Hodge.  That would be a smart move and be exactly what their team needed!  Maybe head coach Scott Ninnis could put on a singlet and be more effective than some of the guys on his squad.  Once again, everbody’s favourite South Australian Boti Nagy has wrote an article on his departure. 

- Speaking of the 36ers, it seems that my post on Aaron Bruce – do we believe the hype? was not overly popular with a guy by the name of Cameron Bruce (a relative I presume).  He so elquontaley states:

your a wanker, got no game so u bag other players. stick 2 reffing “hulkamania”

I actually don’t think that I was bagging Bruce out.  But I guess that opnions are like arseholes – everybody’s got one! 

- Shane Heal could be in a bit of trouble for racially abusing a fan during Wednesday’s game against the Sydney Spirit.  This was all over the Ozhoops NBL board on Thursday and Friday.  My stupid works internal blocking system is not working so I can’t give you the direct link to it.  Let’s just say that apparently (and I state apparently) the guy has video footage of what occured and if what he is reporting is true, the Hammer could be in a fair bit of trouble.  Scratch that: I just went back to Ozhoops NBL board and I noticed that the thread on this story no longer exsists!  I wonder why  

- The latest episode of the OT with JR and DJ Rod is up and it features a huge piece with everbody’s favourite Australian / Croatian Andrew Bogut.  It is pretty awesome that a guy like Bogut would take the time to do this interview and it goes to prove that if you are a somebody (e.g John Rillie) other somebody’s (e.g Andrew Bogut) will do things for you   In the podcast they discuss various issues and Andrew gives some insight into some of the things that he does.  He comes across in the interview as a casual, down to earth guy and it was super to hear him interact with JR.  This blog even got a shout out at the 45 minute mark.  If only JR on Fire wasn’t banned at my work.  For some stupid reason I can use my iGoogle account to RSS feed the episodes of the OT.  Go figure!  I can’t access any blogspot sites, so I can’t comment on many Australian basketball blogs.

- The NBL announced today the player of the month is Kirk Penney and coach of the month is Brian Goorjian. I am not doubting either of these two people are very deserving winners but I was very amused when I looked at the overall votes.  The article made this statement: 

The NBL’s Player and Coach of the Month for December take into account Rounds 1 to 7 inclusive. All NBL Head Coaches and accredited media are eligible to vote.

So then I went and looked at the list of players who actually received votes and here is the list:

Kirk Penney (New Zealand) 89
Chris Anstey (Melbourne) 27
Corey Williams (Townsville) 19
Shawn Redhage (Perth) 17
Joe Ingles (South) 14
Mark Worthington (South) 12
CJ Bruton (New Zealand) 12
Luke Schenscher (Adelaide) 7
Sam Mackinnon (Melbourne) 5
Dusty Rychart (Wollongong) 4
Darnell Mee (Cairns) 3
Julian Khazzouh (Sydney) 2
Darnell Hinson (Perth) 2
Ebi Ere (Melbourne) 1
Glen Saville (Wollongong) 1
Adam Ballinger (Adelaide)

Are you serious?  As much as I loved Julian Khazzouh, player of the month? Even Glen Saville could bet put into this category. 

Then I looked at the coach of the month voting and had a huge laugh when I saw this:

Brian Goorjian (South) 85
Andrej Lemanis (New Zealand) 73
Eric Cooks (Wollongong) 39
Alan Westover (Melbourne) 9
Rob Beveridge (Sydney) 2
Scott Ninnis (Adelaide) 1
Conner Henry (Perth) 1

Scott Ninnis is currently coaching a team that is not playing well and he receives a vote?  How can Conner Henry only receive the same amount of votes.  At least the right people won the two awards!

- Luke Kendall hasn’t quite found his groove with the Perth Wildcats yet. In his latest outing with the Wildcats against the Crocs, he didn’t exactly set the world on fire.  Whilst the game was a blow out, it seems that Perth has some interesting issues with their rotation of playing time.  Let’s not forget people that Kendall was the last man cut from the Olympic team and is a quality player.  I am personally calling upon Connor Henry to insert him into the starting line up at the expense of Peter Crawford and see what happens.  I doubt this will happen though!

- Mookie has wrote an insightful piece on where NBL mascots go to die.  Maybe the Lion was sold when the team went into recivership! 

- How awesome are the South Dragons?  I really enjoyed watching them play on Wednesday night and I stated to my friend Grandmaster Funk, if I had $56 million and wanted to buy one of the new NBL franchises for next season, the first player that I would get from current NBL rosters would be Mark Worthington.  He just goes so hard, plays defense and is hard to guard.  He is a bit of a tweener at the international level but great at the NBL level.  I would even take him over Chris Anstey at the moment.  Matt Burston was also huge in this game and the NBL site had a good article on him.  He is a guy that has had a lot of tough breaks.  It was awesome to see him go at it and get the job done.   Next week I have a huge post on Brian Goorjian and another post on some guy that I had never heard about until the other day, Daniel Dillon. 

- How much longer will the Melbourne Tigers keep playing David Barlow out of position and PG and persevere with him?  His numbers against the Spirit last weekend were ok but it really seems to be affecting his play.  Andrew Gaze and Nigel Purchase had some interesting things to say on the running of the shuffle offense and how they are running it at the moment.  They feel that the problem is how the players are running it.  On the Tigers website, an article titled “Tigers say We Believe” has been uploaded and Alan Westover states that there aren’t going to be any changes to the system.  Two more things:

1. What is up with Rod Grizzard turning the ball over 7 times against the Spirit?
2. Why is the NBL Podcast still called ‘The NBL Hummer Podcasts’  Is Hummer still a sponsor?

- In The latest episode of the OT with JR and DJ Rod JR mentions the ‘man love’ that I have for Russell HInder at the moment and how that love is recipracated by him and I am his favourite blogger!  I appreciate the love and still think that the greatest thing about Russell Hinder at the moment is the fact that he is getting it done in multiple categories.  In the shalacking that was the Perth game, he hit two 3 pointers and 2 assists which is very reasonable for a centre.  (We won’t mention the four turnovers though!)  I would highly doubt that there is another centre in the league who is being as efficent statistcally at the moment as him.  Keep up the good work Rusty!  My FNBL team thanks you!

- The Rockhampton Rockets want PG Rhys Martin to return for another season in the QABL (or whatever it is going to be called.)  It would be interesting to see what Eric Cooks’s take on this is.  If the Hawks are in the league next year and Martin is a required player, maybe he wouldn’t be overly keen on him playing.  Everybody knows that Rockhampton plays their players quite well – not SEABL money but better than most Queensland clubs.  Cameron Tragardh has been a QABL monster over the past couple of seasons as well.  Only time will tell I guess! 

- Finally it seems as though new Gold Coast Blaze import Justin Bowen has had a tough night at the office during his second game against the Sydney Spirit. Whilst he was affective on the glass (11 total rebounds) his point production (4pts) and FG% was shocking.  Worse than that was his 9 turnovers that he had in 30:38 minutes of courtime.  Coach Brendan Joyce stated in this interview that he felt that Bowen was bumped a lot and not geting many calls.  He also states that Bowen basically has to ’suck it up’ and get the job done.  I am sure that Brendan Joyce will be addressing this during the week.  If you are reading this Brendan, read my article on Pero Cameon.  He has to go! 

So for somebody who had nothing to post, I certainly crammed a fair bit into this post!

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!

I couldn’t think of an exact title or subject for this blog entry, so I decided to just look at some random NBL stuff and write about it.  Here we go:

- Tony Ronaldson this weekend will surpass Andrew Gaze as the player who has played the most amount of NBL games.  A lot of people love the Bear and some hate him.  I remember when he went to Arizona State and came back half way through his freshman season and signed with the Eastside Melbourne Spectres.  He has been to multiple World Championships and Olympic Games and can be credited with hitting one of the biggest shots in Australian basketball history (QF game against Croatia at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta)  I love the Bear and how he plays the game.  Breakers fans are blessed to have him.

- It seems that Dragons import Tremmell Darden may have turned the corner and finally found some form I picked him up early (5th round) in the FNBL draft. I got rid of him when he was producing nothing. Only time will tell if his form can hold. I haven’t seen any of his games but appartently he can get it done at the defensive end.

- How awesome is it that Lindsay Gaze is going to coach Tianjin in the Chinese Basketball Association How long do you think that it will be until they are running the shuffle? I will bet during the first game! This guy is a true ambassdor for our sport. Can anybody say Asian Champions League?

- I was really disappointed to read that the NBL want be holding an All Star game this season In his article Boti Nagy refers to this season as a ‘tread water season’ It certainly seems that way doesn’t it? Mookie from A Stern Warning also has a great blog that explores heaps of different basketball concepts. He also agrees with me about the removal of the All Star Game. The All Star game is a chance to get all of the best players in one location and showcase their skill set. Is Chuck Harmission listening?

- If there was a ‘I hate the way that Lindsay Tate plays basketball’ club, I would defintely join. In my brief viewing of the game on Wednesday night, I counted four travels that were not called. Come on Eric Cooks, play Rhys Martin more.

- Former 36ers player Darren Ng has a great blog that has been outlining his season so far in Singapore. There is a great write up of the China vs Invitational Australian Team. It is an interesting read.

- Mookie has also wrote an interesting article on the Wollongong Hawks Some of the Hawks players individual stats are down but they are playing much better. They got the job done against the Taipans the other night. How long can it last for? Kavossey was huge down the stretch for them. I also love the way Anthony ‘I take no crap from Martin Cattalini’ Petrie plays.

- Patrick Hunt has been appointed to the new role of AIS Applied Technical Advancement Coach commencing in January 2009. That certainly is a big job title. I wonder what will actually come of it. Basketball Australia is looking to secure international success by appointing Australian Olympic legends Andrew Gaze, Andrew Vlahov and Rachael Sporn have been appointed by Basketball Australia to help evaluate the success of the Boomers and Opals Olympic programs following their recent campaigns at the Beijing Games, including making recommendations on what is required to secure medals at the London Games in 2012. Whilst all three of these people have very impressive credentials, the most important thing is getting our coaching staff sorted out and identifying game styles etc.

- The Gold Coast Blaze have parted company with Juaquin Hawkins due to injury concerns. I applaud this choice and can’t believe that they actually bought him back this year. Before his minor stroke last year, his stats were not overly impressive. He came in with a lot of hype but never really delivered a whole lot. John Rillie commented on The OT with JR and Rod about this scenario and had some inside mail that the Blaze were looking at former 36ers import Mike Chappell. This is not a good sign for the Blaze people. Not good at all!

- My new team the Sydney Spirit take on the South Dragons tonight in Melbourne. It should be an interesting match up. If the Spirit can pound the offensive glass consistently, they may be in with a chance. The Worthington (if he is playing) vs Knight matchup will be the key and the Martin vs Gibson matchup will also be crucial. My prediction: Spirit by 5!!