Has there been a more up and down them throughout the season then the Wollongong Hawks?  Recently both Eric Cooks and Glen Saville came out and said that the Hawks need to step up in two main areas: rebounding and consistency.  Lets have a look at their roster and break it down player by player:

Kavossy Franklin: I remember the first time that I laid eyes on this guy and thought ”Why in the hell have the Sydney Kings recruited a midget to play beside Shane Heal?”  After watching him play a few games, I realised why they did.  Kavossy started the season off a bit inconsistently but seems to be moving in the right direction. He is a natural leader and a good choice for the hawks.

Mat Campbell: His averages are a little bit down this season (9.4ppg, 3.0rpg and 2.6apg) and he seems to have slowed down half a step.  What he does bring is solid leadership and he is pretty good at the defensive end. An increase in his 3pt percentage would help to no end.

Glen Saville: Wollongong Hawks fans were very excited when they found that he was returning from the Sydney Kings.  His numbers are significantly better this season but he is in a situation where he is the main man and not just a piece of the puzzle.   

Dusty Rychart: Dusty seems to be doing the job that he has always done for every NBL team that he has played with.  His numbers are not overly spectacular but they are pretty dam good.  He has been a super pick up for them after last years debaracle with their 2nd import spot.

Cameron Tragardh: He had a super off season in the QABL and has had a pretty good run so far.  His numbers are down on last years Most Improved Player award but his team is playing a lot better.  In his last hit out against a tough front line against the 36ers, he seemed to get the job done. 

Anthony Petrie: In my opinion, this guy is awesome for this franchise.  He seems to play the role that he is asked very well and provides good depth at both forward spots.  I loved the way that he didn’t backdown against Martin Cattalini in their game on Fox Sports last month.

Larry Davidson: Larry is a bit of an enigma.  He is super somtimes and average others.  He seems to have a tendancy to float in and out of games. 

Rhys Martin: The poor guy had his car torched earlier on in the season.  He has been taking advantage of his opportunities and seems to be making a contribution. 

Daniel Jackson: I have no clue on this guy so I won’t make a comment.

Lindsay Tait: At the beginning of the season I was really looking forward to watching Tait play and I honestly thought that he would push Matt Campbell out of his starting spot.  It seems that this hasn’t been the case and he hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to press his case.

Head coach Eric Cooks seems to have the respect of the players who play for him.  He took over the team mid season a couple of years ago in wake of the Brendan Joyce decision and has continued on with them ever since.  Since Joyce has left, Cooks has added Tragardh, Tait, Martin, Saville (lost and gained) and Petrie to the roster and lost Daniel Joyce, Casey Frank, various imports, Ben Castle and others.  To me it just seems that (and I have only watched a couple of games) the Hawks are still playing the same game style on offense that they were during the Brendan Joyce era.  Whilst I can appreciate that the playing rosters are similar in nature, towards the end of the BJ era he wasn’t winning.  Maybe the formula needs to be adjusted.

One thing that you can seem to rely upon the Hawks doing is punching above their weight.  If we honestly critique their roster, their talent from players 1 – 10 is not as great as some of the others in the league.  They seem to put in a honest effort each week but are not able to consistently get over the hump. 

So will they make the playoffs?  Once you get past New Zealand, South Dragons, Melbourne Tigers and Perth Wildcats, it is an open race in my opinion.  I am prepared to say that the Gold Coast Blaze are done for the year and I am almost ready to put the nail in the coffin for the Cairns Taipans.  So that leaves Adelaide, Wollongong, Sydney and Townsville competing for play off spots.  Their remaining draw for the year is:

Dragons vs. Hawks Hisense Arena Sat, Dec 6 7:30 PM AEDT
Crocodiles vs. Hawks Townsville Entertainment & Convention Centre Sat, Dec 13 7:30 PM
Blaze vs. Hawks Gold Coast Convention Centre Wed, Dec 17 7:30 PM AEST
Tigers vs. Hawks State Netball Hockey Centre Sat, Dec 20 7:30 PM AEDT
Hawks vs. Spirit Wollongong Entertainment Centre Sat, Dec 27 7:30 PM AEDT
Taipans vs. Hawks Cairns Convention Centre Wed, Dec 31 7:30 PM AEST
Hawks vs. Breakers Wollongong Entertainment Centre Fri, Jan 2 7:30 PM AEDT
36ers vs. Hawks Distinctive Homes Dome Wed, Jan 7 7:00 PM ACT
Spirit vs. Hawks Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre Sat, Jan 10 7:30 PM AEDT
Hawks vs. Tigers Wollongong Entertainment Centre Sat, Jan 17 7:30 PM AEDT
Hawks vs. Crocodiles Wollongong Entertainment Centre Sat, Jan 24 7:30 PM AEDT
Hawks vs. Tigers Wollongong Entertainment Centre Fri, Jan 30 7:30 PM AEDT
Hawks vs. Breakers Wollongong Entertainment Centre Fri, Feb 6 7:30 PM AEDT
Hawks vs. 36ers Wollongong Entertainment Centre Fri, Feb 13 7:30 PM AEDT
Blaze vs. Hawks Gold Coast Convention Centre Sat, Feb 14 7:30 PM AEST

They have seven home games remaining with a run of five starting January 17.  The Hawks always play better at home than they do on the road.  Out of those seven home games, I think that they will win 3 or 4 of those games.  On the road, I think that they will win 3 of their remaining 7 games which will leave them with a 14 wins and 14 losses.  Without studying the other contendors remaining games, a 50% win loss record usually gets you into the playoffs.

In answer to my original question: Yes I think that they will get there in the end!

PS…..I just finished watching the replay of the pumping that was the South Dragons game.  I was horrified in how the Hawks played.  They have to many role players and not enough superstars.  I am going to write a big blog entry about the role of the role player but that was an awful performance from the Hawks.  I honestly don’t know if they can make the playoffs!

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…..

 
I am going to make every Tuesday a random rambling day where my blog entry doesn’t just have one category – it has many.  Here goes:

- The NBL has fined Perth Wildcats coach Connor Henry for comments made to the media following his team’s 103-99 loss to the New Zealand Breakers on Thursday night. I don’t exactly know what he said to get the fine but the NBL has become very very sensitive towards players and coaches critising officals. I am not say that we should become a ref bashing league but a coach should be able to say something like “Hey some of those calls down the stretch really affected the outcome of the game”.  They shouldn’t be able to say “That loser screwed us and his seeing eye dog needs to be on the court with him next time”.

- It looks as though James Harvey has caught the Brendan Joyce disease of not living in the real world. Let me state this very clearly for everyone to hear: there is absolutley no way that the Gold Coast Blaze will make the NBL playoffs this season.  Maybe Chocko needs to start playing some of the young kids.  Talking of the Blaze, it seems that Justin Bowen is the man to replace the injured Hawkins. Joyce had this to say about him:

He is a genuine three-spot man. We were looking for someone obviously who could put the ball on the floor and get to the rim, and someone who can create scoring opportunities for himself and others and is solid at both ends.

I will say this – unless this guy is a dead set superstar, the Blaze are in for a long long year.

- Darren Ng has posted the third part of his three part story on the pre season trip to China. It is a good read!

- Boti Nagy is still calling for the head of Mark Tyndale This scatching article was written a while ago which is very critical of Sixers management.

- Rhys Martin’s car got torched whilst he was away in Cairns on a road trip. This is very very average. Speaking of Martin and the Hawks, I am still on Lindsay Tate’s case.  His game against the Taipans on Saturday night was once again not that impressive. Come on Eric Cooks – what are you thinking?

Righto. That will do! See you all tommorow.

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!!