Hawks by 4.
Melbourne have a dangerous team. Their new PG looks creative, they've got a lot of athletic ability with their players (Walker, Dillon, Dorsey), and they've got Trigger who's having a great season. On paper they look good but recently whenver i see games of the Tigers they look soo flat and stagnant. They look lost on offence and their D has been shit. So as long as Hawks control the tempo of the game and their shooters have a reasonable night i think they should win. Also the Ubaka factor. He's going to want to show Seamus wtf he can do.

Hawks by 4.
Melbourne have a dangerous team. Their new PG looks creative, they've got a lot of athletic ability with their players (Walker, Dillon, Dorsey), and they've got Trigger who's having a great season. On paper they look good but recently whenver i see games of the Tigers they look soo flat and stagnant. They look lost on offence and their D has been shit. So as long as Hawks control the tempo of the game and their shooters have a reasonable night i think they should win. Also the Ubaka factor. He's going to want to show Seamus wtf he can do.

Going to be a real flip of the coin I think.
Bad team playing good vs good team playing bad. Add in the unknown or Ubaka and Allen and who knows.

Coin flip landed on Hawks side for my tips this week, but very unsure if that was the way to go.

Melbourne by 3 in a close one. Allen to have 17 and 8. Chewy to go for 20

Melbourne by plenty

While the Hawks will welcome the addition of Chewy he can save this team.

Statman do u mean 'can't'? Otherwise im confused by your post.

Hawks to rip out hearts of Tigers & put Trev Gleeson under the microscope. Gong by 8

Ha - yes orbit my stellar typing/proof reading abilities strike again - definitely meant can't

Love the Hawks and the way they give everything they have but IMO they will get thumped.

Hawks look like a totally different team with Ubaka on the bench let alone the court. Hawks up by 20 at the half!!! Hitting there shots and spacing the floor well. Tigers apart from Tommy Greer and their new PG have been pretty woeful.

*their lol

i was so hoping this was going to happen. so glad hawks are sticking to tigers. who is seamus going to sack now?

anyone know the centrebet odds on the next sacking by seamus?

Dorsey has that "shoulda stayed in cairns look about him"

well when you have a loose cannon at the helm like seamus i would have that look to lol.

Tigers look horrible outside of Allen. This game is showing how much of a difference star imports make!

Allan is an upgrade on Chewy however the difference is not worth the bad blood. Also gives the Hawks a guard which should see them unsettle a lot of teams run to the playoffs.

surely Gleeson be under the pump now, 3rd coach axed by seamus in a year!

This game just affirmed my original belief that the Tigers were never going to address their real issues by getting rid of Ubaka and acquiring Allen.

They need a proper center and a consistent scorer/shooter at the SG position.

1.They got out-rebounded 38-26 tonight (have got murdered on the boards as of late), and they

2.Take away Allen's 17 points, and Rush's 18 and they got just 33 points from the other 8 players.
When Mills left, they put too much pressure on Trigger to score, but as shown tonight when he doesn't score well they don't win games. Even when he does score well, they don't always win.

Theyve been outrebounded badly all season MACDUB. The biggest difference I can see from the start of the year is they were disrupting teams like crazy at the defensive end - their half court offence has been average all season.

When Mills left they lost his energy and by not replacing him they reduced the energy of the other guards, meaning a lot less pressure on oppo guards. Combine that with the fact other teams have scouted what they were doing with their switching defences and they are a shadow of their early selves.

Great to see the Hawks play so well, the whole team seemed pumped after their road trip last week and Ubaka was a great cherry on the sundae.

True Paul.
Its not like they have a small starting lineup to be honest.

Their starting lineup tonight had 6"10 Trigger, 6"11 Burston, 6"6 Dorsey and 6"7 Greer.

The balance of this team is so out of whack. Their problems started when they got rid of Corletto IMO.

This match does pose the question: how would Wollongong have done if they realised what they had with Showtime and didn't sign him after he trialled with them.
Their form since he left has been pretty good. Beat Cairns away, then were within 1 play of sending the Townsville game to overtime. These 2 were without the replacement import. Now they have comfortably beaten Melbourne with Ubaka.
Gordie does well with what he has, but didn't have anything with Glover. They didn't necessarily need another Ervin, but someone at the level of Wilson or Gill and they could have really competed. The team still isn't great on paper, but 1 different player (or coach in our case) can make a big difference.

Ok folks its now official, Wollongong are off the bottom of the ladder, replaced by a slumping 36ers who failed to win any of their 4 games in January.

That's right, Adelaide and Wollongong are both 5-13 right now but the Hawks have a better F-A% so we're back in the bomb shelter.

Well done to the Hawks though. And good to see them get a decent crowd, although Ubaka playing against the Tigers would have drawn a few extra fans.

That's a great point Hendo - without Glover they are 4-4, just 1-9 with him (although counting that first Tigers game is a bit harsh on him, so 4-5 and 1-8). Not as simple as that obviously, but that does suggest he had a definite negative impact.

Glad theyve got Ubaka - he moves guys like Martin, Demos and Campbell into places on the pecking order that suit their talents - because there are a lot of Hawks TV games coming up and he gives them that extra piece they need to be entertaining.

The Tigers need a piece in the Mills/Corletto spot or it could be a very ugly end to the season. As many have said, perhaps a bit of karma.

Holden - pretty sure the 36ers have a higher F-A%. 36ers are above 93 % and Hawks, after tonight, are just below 93%. But I can't see where the next 36ers win will come from while Hawks now look likely to pick up at least a couple. by season end, it may come down to the result of the 3rd game between the two teams. whoever wins that will have the season split, which will separate them if they are tied on win-loss at the end of the last round.

If they have already caught us, It's over, we've sewn up last.
They've only just begun their improvement curve. Ubaka will further blend his game into the team. Gordie will get them all on the same page.
Big thing for me too is Saville has started to play some good games.
Another big thing is there's no scouting to be done on Ubaka. We know what he can do. Allen at Melbourne will be scouted and ways will be worked out to nullify his influence.

Then you look at us. Fans are already beating down the door. Players aren't getting it done. All seems to be a very volatile situation at the Sixers at the moment. Maybe, just maybe, if we find a replacememt for Marty will we see improvement. Something that would bring the team and fans together would be a PR stunt like bringing Maher in as coach to finish off the season. Crowds would love it, he's got a good basketball mind, so he might even do a good job of it. He can't really lose, we are losing consistently anyway, so expectations won't be high. Then if he doesn't turn it around, find a replacement in the off-season.

Trigger went 1 from 8 from the field. Thats gotta rub salt into the wound for Gleeson - nothing is going right for the Tigers! He was in line for MVP honours a month ago. I bet he (along with Dorsey & Dillon) have the shits big time with seamus & possibly the coaching staff!

PeterJohn, after their respective games this round these are the stats for the 36ers and Hawks:-

Hawks:
P-18, W-5, L-13, F-1337, A-1440, 92.85%, W/L%-27.78

36ers
P-18, W-5, L-13, F-1506, A-1631, 92.34%, W/L%-27.78

Puts Wollongong 8th and Adelaide 9th...

Actually PeterJohn you might be right on the season series thing. The NBL website is showing Adelaide 8th and Wollongong 9th despite the Hawks better F-A%.

Can't argue with that and I was in error so apologies. Doesn't change the fact though that the Hawks are turning the corner (if they haven't already) while Adelaide are sliding into oblivion.

I continually hear people like Andrew Gaze say that the 36ers have a much better team than their record shows, yet you never hear the coach cop it from commentators despite his 14-33 record and baffling coaching. Its like he's a protected commodity because he's the Aussie Assistant Coach and former AIS coach and though shall not criticize 'one of the boys' in public...

Sure, Adelaide's squad is definitely overrated but isn't it about time that the coach takes some criticism for that?

seriously, this is a good seed being sown by the hawks. now the SOS will be under major pressure to workout what to do with marty clarke and about time also!!!!

hopefully the hawks and those above win a few more games to really make it a sore and sour point.
I am for winning games also, but why bother with excuses when all we the fans want is a better coach.

Ubaka looked like he was having fun out there for the first time in a couple of months.

Hendo8888

He can't really lose, we are losing consistently anyway, so expectations won't be high. Then if he doesn't turn it around, find a replacement in the off-season

No coach that would be replacing Clarke on an interim bases would have any pressure at all. Minimum wins to compete against with previous coach, and valid excuse that it wasnt the new coaches roster. Having said that, the reason people want blood, is becuase the roster is very good, at worst a 6-9 win team at this point, so a level headed coach with motivational skills, should/would make this 6ers team moderately formidable atleast in home games.

Brendan's level of analysis in last night's broadcast was so shallow I would not want him coaching my team. His lack of basketball IQ was shown up badly in the year's he didnt have a number of savvy veterans on his team.

Joyce had many issues, his son was just one of many. If you knew what they were, like every other club, you too, would steer well clear of this cancerous coach

He was moved on from his last two clubs. I thought his continuous comments about Ubaka got a bit unbearable after a while.

Wollongong

• Joevan Catron (18)
• Tim Coenraad (18)
• Rhys Martin (15)
• Ayinde Ubaka (14)
• Glen Saville (13)
• Tyson Demos (13)
• Mat Campbell (12)
• Larry Davidson (4)
• Zac Delaney (3)
• Oscar Forman (0)
• Daniel Jackson (0)

• Tim Lang (3)
• Benny Lewis (0)
• Tom Greer (-10)
• Lucas Walker (-10)
• Liam Rush (-11)
• Cameron Tragardh (-13)
• Matthew Burston (-16)
• Ron Dorsey (-17)
• Daniel Dillon (-17)
• Myron Allen (-19)

Re: Ladder positions, points percentage is always used to determine standings. Season series determines playoff *seeds* -- whereby if win-loss records are identical between two or more teams at the end of a regular season.

Julian - p179 of the 2011-12 NBL Media Guide describes the process for determining ladder positions at the end of the season. It describes the use of head to head to separate teams tied on win-loss percentage. It's the same for all positions on the table.

"The order of the ladder will be determined by each team's winning percentage. If teams are tied at the end of the season, ties will be broken by the head-to-head record of the tied teams, if possible. Teams that finish the season tied in win-loss and tied on head-to-head will be separated by points differential in games played only between those tied teams. Teams that still remain tied will be separated by total points for divided by total points against for the entire season against all opponents, with the highest percentage winning the tiebreaker."

I think you can roll the ball up the court and the time clock doesn't start til the player picks it up.
Although Carfino was telling us Allen was gonna get caught for a time infringement doing that.

PeterJohn - Correct, although I don't see the point in determining lower positions as there is no relegation/promotion or qualification to a continental competition.

Camel 31 - I facepalmed at that. Carfino really has no idea.