Jack Toft
Years ago
Men’s ABA Teams Bottom 5 wrap up
10th - Lions (1-17)
Looked promising before the start of the season, but they seemed to snap their mast whilst in port. Brain fades appeared to be their downfall. Reckon they had a bad quarter each game without fail. To win games, you need to string four good quarters together, not quarter four good strings together. Defence had more holes than a golf course at times with the opposition cracking a ton 5 times. Starplex is far away and after a long drive should be a house of pain, not a % booster. Clarke missed on a ton of assists by one – if only that last one dropped!
9th – Tigers (4-14)
Saved their best game for last, but like a hotted up Datsun 180B with fluffy dice, looked nice in the carpark of KFC, but not good enough on the track against some of the V8s when they challenged for a drag. This team can be competitive if they play to their strengths, but offensive effort must lift. Time to turn the Datsun into the General Lee.
8th – Panthers (5-13)
Gazzo was their standout all season scoring 24.1 ppg. A lack of depth saw the Panthers rely on too few players to do too much. Had a lot of close games. Of the 9 games that went +/- 10, they lost 8 of them. Need to work on those pressure games if they want to blow the dust off the tin shed – last time they were dust free Scotty was running around in shorts that looked like they were painted on by Emma Haack and left nothing to the imagination.
7th – Warriors (7-11)
A strong start to the season, but came home with a wet sail when the import left. Brink with 16.5 ppg and 9.3 rpg a highlight. The team spent another season floundering as an also ran after being in a good position turning into home straight. The worst offense was offset by the best defence of the bottom 5. Warriors need sharp swords, not bamboo sticks, to win games.
6th – Mavs (9-9)
Hill, Dodman, Madgen, Breheny, Breheny. Sounds like a 36ers bench doesn't it? Was probably the SA Country U14 Magpies a few years back. So why aren’t these guys playing finals? Huge disappointment. Early away game losses their downfall. They cracked the ton 3 times this season and came home strong bagging an extra 10 points per game in the second half of the season – Madge the difference there, but like the girls, scoring output was down 5 points a game away from home. Obviously, next season, the six fingered banjo players that inspire the boys at home may need to venture onto the plains.
Using the rule of one player per team and all positions to be filled, my starting 5 from these teams is: Reeves (CD) (F), Knight (WW) (F), Madgen (EM) (G), Gazzo (SA) (G), Braithwaite (ST) (G).
Some unlucky guys would make up a deep bench.
