Shit ... sorry!!

I've inadvertently pulled a timezones of Australia violation.

WNBL.com.au formatting is a pain to copy & paste from, so I did it from the fixtures in the Basket Case tipping comp instead, but mine are set up for WA time.

ACTUAL ROUND 5 FIXTURE:

Thu 2 Nov 7:00pm Sydney Uni Flames vs UC Capitals
Thu 2 Nov 7:00pm Adelaide Lightning vs Dandenong Rangers
Thu 2 Nov 6:30pm Perth Lynx vs Townsville Fire

Sat 4 Nov 3:00pm UC Capitals vs Sydney Uni Flames (Live on Fox)
Sat 4 Nov 7:00pm Bendigo Spirit vs Melbourne Boomers

Sun 5 Nov 3:00pm Townsville Fire vs Adelaide Lightning

Mon 6 Nov 7:30pm Melbourne Boomers vs Dandenong Rangers

@WNBL

PLEASE NOTE: There has been a time change to @AdelLightning vs @JaycoRangers tomorrow night. Tip off is now at 7pm local time in Adelaide.

Any team or injuries news? Are we expecting the likes of Ebzery and Williams back for their respective teams?

Heard Williams is a strong chance for tomorrow night and quite sure I heard Cheryl Chambers last Sunday @Dand use the words "(Ebzery) left out as a precaution." So not sure whether all that tranlates into those two playing and whether or not strained ankle ligaments are normally mended in five days?

... Jarry is cleared to play and also if Williams returns it would mean Schwagmeyer can't play (unless residency sudddly has come through). Laney's injury flared up after a session, just when she was a strong chance to play last game, so she'll be a watch.

... Elsworthy out two weeks with a broken nose, although Seekamp & Clydesdale obviously have the mins covered.

Great reporting, thanks Ash.

Yeah hopefully Williams gets up. Schwagmeyer's PR also answers why Perth were going into the season with 9 people. From the paper article, it sounds like she'll get it "soon"

I think Megan Hustwaite said on the WNBL show that Williams was a 10-21 day injury and their round 5 game will be around 12 days post injury, so definitely in with a chance to return. iirc she also said Ebzery had a grade 2 sprain, if that's the case then I wouldn't be surprised at all if she missed this weekend too.

I'm looking forward to getting my first look at the Caps this season, how odd that Sydney/Canberra play each other twice in the same round though. I can't help but think Sydney will go 2-0 there, especially if they have Ebzery on the floor. If the Caps can't at least split the weekend IMO they'll have fallen a bit too far behind and will be out of the playoffs picture.

I have a feeling the Spirit may be a danger game for Melbourne especially if they can't turn their form around and get a bit more scoring going. Same goes with the derby although both sides generally turn it up for that one so it should be a great contest.

Yeah if the Spirit are to win against the Boomers then it's this match. Only one match this week, off a good break and the Boomers don't exactly have the best away form this year for some reason.

Tough to back them though.

Hey Melbfan,

Where can I see the WNBL Show? I couldn't find it on youtube or the main WNBL site.

The WNBL Show

Basket Case



Great news - the Sydney Uni Flames are live streaming again :)
Tonight's game vs Canberra

Fox Sports Live

The WNBL Show is also available as a podcast if you search it in the podcast app :)

The Boomers haven't had the best road record for a few seasons now, wouldn't have a clue why

Great we get another live match. So thanks to Sydney for that. Sucks that they are the only ones able to afford to jump through all of Fox's hoops to get a stream running.

I don't get why Hooper is coming off the bench, IMO the Caps look so much better with her on the floor. 3-17 shooting isn't pretty though, I think it'll be a long weekend for them unfortunately.

Ebzery got the start and is looking good. 6 points & 3 boards in the 1st Q, and the Flames already have a sizeable lead.

Yikes, I think that play there just about summarises the Caps.. Jarry had the match up against Walmsley in the post but Scherf goes it herself and gets blocked by Hamson. 4th block by her early in the 2nd is pretty impressive!

Magbegor says NO

Great to see Ezi in the league for the first time - she's doing a great job out there so far!

Forget the basketball, that Flames mascot is hilarious! Can we have a little side cam for him/her!

I'd give the MVP to that band. They seem to flip between earnest and lackadaisical. Awesome

Rangers announcing themselves this season. Mijovic is hacing one of her hot games, going to be hard to stop.

Commentators curse? I say that and Adelaide go on a 10-0 run to take the lead back :D

Some game by Sara Blicavs there - 15 points, 9 reb, 8 ast, 6 stl! Another overtime thriller, it's great that Dandy can get the job done when its tight though. Did Mijovic get injured? Only played the 18 mins and didn't come back on after midway through the third..

Williams is back in the starting lineup for Perth, it'll be interesting to see how that game goes.

How about the statement being made over in Perth, I'm shocked at that scoreline.

Kunek taking the mantle over from Mijovic last season. Raining threes.

Huge win by Dandenong. They had to come back against a strong Lightning. Both them and Lynx making sure they're not out of the finals race.

Capitals really need to win their home leg of the Sydney double to keep up.

Townsville looking like a repeat of last season imo.. stacked with talent but light on for hunger .. not surprised they're getting their asses handed to them after two straight wins

big win for Rangers - I reckon spots will be decided by splits at the end of the season - so balanced.

Wonder if the Fire will play any D in the 2nd half. Most of those 8 threes were wide open.

That'd be a yes

Nice win Perth.

Kunek has really hit some form and gone under radar.

Will be interesting to see how Townsville bounceback. Adelaide shouldn't need be going easy here either

Could nearly see it coming, Pickem, with Suzy preseason talking up how deep they were.

Very nice win yeah :)
Townsville will be kicking themselves for that lacklustre first half though. I thought they were the better team in the 2nd.
Perth bring so much energy that if you don't match it, you can fall behind in a hurry. It's great to watch.

I'm pretty impressed by Perth holding on to that lead, it looked like the Fire came out of the break with a point to prove, but they just pushed it right back out. Kunek definitely is having a ripper of a season, I think she's actually leading the league in 3PM and is shooting them at 50% too. To be honest I thought she'd get a bit lost in a team that has Whitcomb, Williams and Standish but she's proven me wrong there.

Just looking at the overall team stats, the Fire and Boomers are the only two teams scoring below 70PPG. IMO that's not going to cut it come playoff time, especially if their defence isn't up to scratch. In terms of their scoring they have Suzy, Cayla when she's switched on and then well not much else. Also another interesting one is that the Boomers are sitting last for RPG at 35.86, I have no words for that one to be honest..

Also is Mia Murray injured? it looks like she's having a shocker of a season by her standards.

When I watched Perth play Melbourne at SBC it like an imaginary line had been drawn down the middle of court and for the entire night Williams was prohibited from entering the West half and Whitcomb prohibited from the east. Does it still look like that?

I don't think there's anything too unique about the way Perth try to space the floor on offence, so yeah, a lot of the time the result will be Courtney & Sami on opposite wings.

A couple of news bits I just came across

The Spirit will regain import forward Betnijah Laney after a minor knee injury kept her out last week but Laney will be on a minutes restriction as the team has a game next Thursday night.

O'Hea was expected to test out her calf and could return. If she returns this round it is unlikely she plays both Saturday night and in Monday night's Melbourne Cup eve showdown with Dandenong Rangers.

Good that O'Hea is a chance to return this weekend, hopefully that will fix up a lot of the Boomers' issues.

I think there was discussion here around the time about the two together on the court getting sorted, Luuuc? Of coarse it's little different to Conneticut's track meets with Courtney and Jasmine Thomas on opposite sides. Was just wondering if it still looks as strict as it did that night.

I'm tipping Boomers will struggle with "look at Me Cambage". How did she get a leadership roll? Can you see her encouraging the younger players, Yeah Right.
When you rely on one player and they don't perform, its too late to ask other players to step in when the coach has no confidence in you.


Melbourne must have spent double the amount on players compared to other clubs.
We'll see if it can buy you a Championship?

I wouldn't say Cambage isn't performing in terms of her stat sheet outputs - she's averaging a touch under 20pts/10reb per game and is sitting at 55%FG. In terms of her attitude/behaviour on court, well yeah probably not ticking the boxes there.

IMO it's the other players who aren't stepping up due to Liz and/or the style of game they're implementing around her. Cole, Garrick and O'Hea are well, well down on their usual/expected scoring output this season, but at least O'Hea is really hitting the boards when she's actually fit to play.

The Boomers are apparently announcing a new signing on Wednesday, who will suit up for their first game against Canberra on the 18th. I'd assume it'd be an injury replacement import for Duever if the player won't be able to play until the following round.

18th is a TV game. vs Canberra.
I'm tipping it will be a sellout.

Much better performance this half from the Caps. Two points up and a good chance to take revenge. Surely Hooper's form deserves a starting gig.

Taylor is a great player but she needs to shelve the 3 point shot until she can hit more than 20% of them.

Good tough contest today. I'm enjoying this one.

To be fair Ebzery is a more natural SG, but I agree Sydney's offense is extremely frustrating to watch. This is turning out to be a better game than I had anticipated pre-game.

Ebzery not that out of position, she has played pg in Europe.

Speaking of point guards, how would we rate the 8 starting PG in the WNBL this year?

She may have played there for a shirt while but it's clearly not her ideal spot IMO

Only thing that can stop her is dirty play

Taylor owns Capitals in the last half.

Shame it couldn't be closer, as someone said earlier Capitals seem to have decent depth but just not the star quality the Sydney Flames have. They're going to be fighting off with Bendigo to avoid the wooden spoon unfortunately.

Jarry looking frustrated and it is dragging down her play

Agree, Asia Taylor would have to be MVP frontrunner right now.

Let's go $pirit!
Looks like O'Hea is still out so they're a chance.

Spirit leading by 14 at the half

Cambage on 3 PFs including 1 tech

Cambage has got a tech in multiple games

She's from the Joey Wright school of inspirational leadership

What the hell, Bendigo? :/
They scored their first basket of the 3rd quarter in the final 10 seconds of it.
14-3 quarter: Ugly.
They still have a 3 point lead though.

A 3 point quarter from Bendigo? Come on!

Cambage fouls out in the opening minute of the 4th.

Still got up in OT after Cambage FO v Perth.

She fouled out in the last minute.
Not the first minute.

Mid OT, when it even or behind a couple - something like that. But yeah ...

Yeah, your right

She needs to prepare for DJ at the Melbourne Cup

Anyone got a score? WNBL site down

Bendigo win by 5

Someone on the Melbourne bench got teched up in the last minute - was it the ejected DJ herself?

The Melbourne board let the fans down by appointing Molley.
Who gives a loosing record coach another 2-3 years?

Well done Bendigo it was always going to be their best chance to win and they capitalised.

Boomers indeed look shaky without Ohea.

Not surprised about that one, if the Spirit were ever going to get Melbourne it was in that game tonight. Though I am surprised they did it with Griffin on 13 points and Laney on 9.

I suspect this loss will give them the kick up the bum they needed though - I'm looking forward to Monday night.

Melbourne has lost their last 3 games and only beat Perth in overtime by 2 points.
They need a rocket up their ass, not a kick up the bum.

Spirit six blocks to one was good, Grffin with five of them.

Boomers signing Molloy forba further three years at the end of last season was just crazy, and by the looks of it theybwill be regretting that decision.
As for Liz, why they have not pulled her into line by now leaves you wondering just what the Boomers board actually do. And having her as a "leader" reflects very poorly on what they try to portray as an association.
All they seem to want though is the hype, but they can't provide the substance, their last marketing pitch was naming Boomers as Melbournes elite WNBL team, they play out of the state centre in Wantirna, not Melbourne, they seem to have forgotten Rangers are also a "Melbourne " team lol.

LOL @ Double Dribble, true that, true that...

IMO the Boomers are straying from that identity of being a family club that they built through the Bulleen/early Melbourne days.

Apparently Kelsey Griffin has a hip injury coming out of last nights game - hopefully it's not too serious as they have a tough double next week of Sydney and a trip to Townsville.

http://www.bendigoweekly.com/news/spirit-withstand-dramatic-finish-for-second-win

"Betnijah Laney made a welcome return from injury for Bendigo, but a hip complaint for Kelsey Griffin is Bendigo's most pressing concern.

"It was fantastic to have Betnijah back, she wasn't at 100 per cent," Pritchard said.

"I think our bigger issue is Kelsey is really labouring with an injury and we'll have that assessed but it doesn't look very good.""

Definitely agree, but realistically is there any Aussie that could replace Leilani? Unfortunately for them the timing of Tupaea's injury doesn't help in that Ebzery has to play almost all of her minutes in PG. If I were building their roster though, I'd see the benefits of having both Taylor and Hamson with Ebzery in PG outweighing those of dropping one of their imports to bring in an import PG who would be equivalent or superior to Leilani.

Lightning, u in trouble girl
:O

40-13 mid way through the 2nd

Yeah coach must be tearing his hair out. None of the starters positive efficiency wise so far.

Wow, that's just a nasty score line for Adelaide.. The OT & travel must've caught up with them.. You're never going to win a game when shooting at 27%, out-rebounded by 20 and making 21 turnovers. Yikes.

Not a good week for Adelaide at all. Back to the pack.

Happy dreams of Titanium Security Arena seem distant.

@joelbpeterson
Enormous loss for the Spirit. Griffin scheduled for surgery this week. Will miss the remainder of the @WNBL season. #WNBL18

Wow, that is absolutely shattering for Griffin and the Spirit. It really is tough to see Bendigo getting too many more wins this season without Griffin.

Also no O'Hea again for the Boomers tonight. I can see them coming out fired up after the Bendigo loss, but I think they'll need really good four quarter games from Garrick, Cole and Smart as well as keeping Cambage out of foul trouble to come away with the win.

That's awful news about Griffin :(

Bendigo probably need to sign another player who could back up the 3/4 spots as realistically if they keep Karatiana in that starting 5 and put Laney in at 4 they've only got Gabe coming off the bench and to a lesser extent Rolph. So realistically they're looking awfully slow or very, very small in those two positions. There aren't too many WNBL proven bigger players out there, really the only name I can think of would be Kelly Bowen but she's probably a bit undersized to be a PF as well.

Interesting when it might have happened, because Griffin's obviously dominated the entire last term.

I'm betting that she has one before half time.
How can you take young players to a Melbourne game and then try to explain why Liz is getting so many technical fouls.
Thw WNBL MUST be embarrassed about her poor display because nothing is mentioned about her tech fouls and how it impacts the teams performance.

I keep changing who I think will win this match. If O'hea was back it'd tip the scale to Boomers but gee with Dandes form they could be took good here even though Boomers should have the quality to beat em.

Melbourne is going in with a slightly different starting 5 to previous games - Smart being replaced by Tomlinson - interesting move given Smart has been one of the few scoring well for them in the past few weeks..

I agree, without O'Hea the Boomers look a shadow of their early season selves. Should be a cracker of a game nonetheless!

Lavey hasn't been that effective this season from what I've seen

The flakiest team in the WNBL does it again. Rangers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory via a 9-23 4th quarter. Cambage 13 points in the 4th and a blocked shot to kill the game.

Garrick putting up 1/12...single figure quarters from both sides?

Weird game

Once again an embarrassing display of behaviour from Cambage, why is this type of behaviour from her being tolerated by the league, Boomers clearly just sweep it under the rug, instant damage control mode tonight to get the crowd chanting rather than the boos that were being given out when she kicked of yet again over a call, her flagrant throwing of the elbows, and acting in the key...Christ she looks like she going for an Oscar nomination.
How is she a role model for anyone, as a Boomers fan, I'm almost tempted to get rid of my membership, why are they not pulling her into line.so much great work done to rebuild the Boomers, and this brat undoes it all in one foul swoop.

Devastating choke, Rangers. That really should have been a win.

The Boomers derby comeback was obviously impressive, but the best thing was this:

in front of a club record crowd of 3157

LJ used to drop F-bombs everywhere and rack up techs. Ultimately she was a fierce competitor and that's what she was remembered for. Liz would obviously benefit from being mentally tougher, but this role model posturing here is over the top. It's pretty clear that it's personal for this poster.

I'm guessing not, since that would have been mentioned somewhere.
Must have been close though. Stadium capacity appears to be 3200?

Not a sell out, but very close to - I'd say the only seats with visible emptiness were about two thirds of the back half dozen or so rows of seating. Great for women's basketball! Now the real test is to see how many of those 3157 sign up for memberships and/or return in the future.

I also wonder how much longer the league will be able to play out venues like SBC/Dandenong etc - I hope for the sake of the league it isn't long before either more seating is required or they can play out of Hisense etc.

Why is it if anyone points something out about her it Has to be personal , can it not be a general observation?

Diana Taurasi leads the wnba in techs every year.
Complains to refs constantly.
Doesn't take constant heat for being a poor role model.

All players involved in professional sport are there to be role models to some degree or another. How much they choose to do so and whether they take a more active approach is entirely up to them

However any point goes from "general observation" to "personal vendetta" when the same person/anon is repeating the same thing week in week out. You've made your point, we get it.

If the issue really is as big as the person that's beating on about it thinks, then it wont be long until the media picks up on it.

Aus sports bubble may not care about women's sport, but it does care insanely about any sort of controversy and she fulfils the Olympics/national squad profile too.

I agree, her behaviour doesn't really coincide with what the Boomers are trying to market themselves as - but it is clear now that nothing is going to be done with it. To be honest, if I were a club I'd probably try and sweep it under a rug too, to have a player who can basically single-handedly games, as shown last night, is very, very hard to find (particularly in Aus). If she could keep her head together I have no doubt she'd be up there in the conversation of the greatest players of all time.

That's probably partly the reason she does it - she can get away with it. If the kid at the end of the bench getting junk time minutes acts up like that they'll get their marching orders pretty damn quickly.

The league clearly approved of her efforts giving her this week's POTW (though to be honest I'd have chosen Asia Taylor, Cambage definitely deserved to be at least in the TOTW for her game last night)

I would have given it to Taylor as well. More points, more rebounds, and more wins.
Interesting decision.

Definitely, that and I felt that the Boomers would've won against Bendigo had she been on court for the whole game instead of fouling out in the first minute of the fourth. Whereas Taylor heavily contributed to Sydney getting those two wins on the weekend.. Very weird indeed.

TOTW for mine would be Taylor, Cambage, Kunek, Batkovic & Sara Blicavs for her game vs Adelaide. Snell, Hamson and Williams probably up there in contention for that final spot as well.

Angry Anon,

Anyone in the public sphere be it sports, media, politics can be a role model it's not something with a box to tick to opt out of. How far they take it or what they wish to do, is entirely up to the person but they're still role models if they're doing something children can watch and look up to.

Unrelated note, aren't the Boomers making a signing today or did I read that wrong?

Yeah the Boomers are making an announcement at 12.30 today - though listening to Guy Molloy's press conference I'm sort of thinking the player may not really be what everyone is expecting.. He talks about how the Boomers are partnering with Maddie Riewoldt's Vision (I believe the game the player is meant to be first suiting up in is the MRV game) and how the signing is 'different' and in conjunction with that.

Sort of makes me think it'll be one of those two day contract type signings given to sick kids - like the one the Perth Wildcats did last week.

Oops, I guess someone lost their cool on role models here.
To say that being a major draw card to a club should have some attachments, eg, speaking at special events, going club meetings and how you display yourself on court would and should be a KPI.

Liz's last game she did not foul out and they won the game. That's what should happen. No point getting her then she fouls out.
She is the pillar of the team, without her the team doesn't score enough points.

https://www.facebook.com/MichelleCoulingPhotography/photos/a.1491351810953574.1073742010.315457861876314/1491368827618539/?type=3&theater

Some great shots from Spirit - Boomers here:

https://www.facebook.com/MichelleCoulingPhotography/photos/ms.c.eJxFUtltQDEI26jCXIb9F6ugj~;TX8oUTeHUoKO7ZjfrBAuoLlH8AkgEYpeQDpDhA5scQhrHEH4BeSfJfkjUMC~;sk7eFOwO1iRTe28pNEbiz685AsjMSFL3Y9zD4PUGqb~_jG614N5PcCRSONJOKZiOElJjqS9T1JbXS9FSjdW095AHA8HPkCxA4W9CbHFYC~;F9xa9ptDW8WDnq95bPfKdr4CV8GIhuZsijsH8Y1x1sx6GlB4Q25R2TacajGonoW0Pu1hYL8Oir5hgTEO~;TVVqTUXO1CEbi3~_AC4g~;D10PXKxzfpD1fbpZcACNe7nOnhScRCh7HKHvlhpG8CQR~_7Zh~;AUmOpfZ.bps.a.1489505604471528.1073742009.315457861876314/1489521704469918/?type=3

Ah, cool story for the child and Boomer, but do think perhaps should qualify their announcements when it is know they're looking for an import.

Did I stutter? Anyone means anyone.

The anons on here...