Tom Abercrombie and his ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne team are leaving their qualification for the French National League play-offs a little late.
The eighth placed ASVEL (16-13) lost a home game against second place Limoges (19-10) on Tuesday. Continue reading
The James Blond Super City Rangers made a major change to their playing roster in the lead up to their Bartercard NBL double header last weekend. US import Eric Devendorf had not been able to shrug off a lingering back injury and was replaced by Australian guard Jason Cadee. Although he top scored with 20 points Cadee’s addition to the Rangers squad had little impact on Saturday as they slipped to a heavy defeat, 95-59 against the Waikato Pistons in a strange lack lustre performance. Continue reading
The surprise news in the past few days has been the jetting-off to the middle east of Mika Vukona.
I’m not sure the Lebanese correspondent for eurobasket.com had done his homework when writing about the Breakers power forward describing him as an “ex international forward”.
He then went on to describe Vukona’s game; “needs to expand the range of his outside shooting because most of his field goals come from lay-ups, also needs to improve his 32% free throw shooting”
Well I doubt Mika has shot 32% free throws since Year 5 in primary school. In fact that has become quite a strong point in his game during the past 18 months. In the last Breakers season he shot a commendable 78% from the charity stripe. In addition that mid range jump shot has become quite a weapon for Vukona.
More research needed from our Lebanese basketball writer I think.
The 2014 SKY CITY Breakers MVP had been anticipating playing a couple of games for the Nelson Giants over Anzac weekend. Instead he answered an SOS call from Tall Blacks coach Nenad Vucinic and within a matter of hours was heading to Lebanon to link up with Vucinic’s club side Byblos. One of the American imports playing for Byblos has suffered an injury and Mika has been called in to provide cover at a critical stage of the season. His stay in Lebanon could be as short as a week as Byblos are involved in a best of three quarter final tie in the Labanese Championship. Byblos won game one against Moutahed 74-65, Mika’s services not required.
Tom Abercrombie has played four games for his new club in France. In his first game for ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne he only logged a couple of minutes having had just one training session with his new team mates following his arrival from NZ. Since then he has been playing good minutes although not required to take on too much offensive responsibility. ASVEL are in 8th place in the league with two regular season game remaining, one more win will secure them a play-off berth. Their next game is Tuesday night (NZ time).
Gary Wilkinson has returned to Puerto Rico to link up with club side Indios de Mayaguez, the team he played for in 2013. Wilkinson is averaging 16.6pts/7.1 rebounds but Mayaguez languish ninth in a ten team league.
The Sky City Breakers ability to recruit quality players for next season just got a whole lot easier.
The club will benefit from a revision of the rules surrounding the NBL Points Ranking. Each player is ranked between 1 and 10 points depending on their performance in the previous season. Continue reading
The Harbour Breeze embarks on its quest to win the 2014 National Womens Basketball Competition next weekend, May 2-4.
The first of the three tournaments to decide the WBC will be held in Christchurch. The four times championship winning Breeze take a familiar line up south. Chelsea Terei and Anna Lacey will assume point guard duties, the off guard responsibilities sitting with Junior Tall Fern Ella Fotu, Claire McCurran and Shinae Blair. Continue reading
The Bartercard NBL returns to North Harbour after a two year absence next Sunday. Unfortunately for the Harbour faithful the game does not feature the Harbour Heat instead it is the James Blond Super City Rangers who will be running out at AUT to take on the table topping Wellington Saints. Continue reading
Always interesting thoughts out of Australia from Boti Nagy. I wonder who the Breakers might consider as a marquee player? Continue reading
The James Blond Super City Rangers entered their Easter weekend double header on the back of a 0-3 start to the 2014 Bartercard NBL season. The weekend’s games were not quite make or break for the Rangers in terms of making the end of season play-offs but two further losses would seriously dent their chances. Continue reading
The Davidson family has certainly been clocking up the air miles of late.
I spoke to Greg Davidson at the Harbour Basketball Easter Tournament on Friday, he had just finished coaching his youngest daughter Mareta’s U15 Harbour rep game. Continue reading
The U18 New Zealand Women ran into ‘The Wall’ called fatigue on the final day of the Australian State championships in Canberra.
The Women faced New South Wales Country in the play-off for seventh an eighth places. The scores were only close in the first quarter, NSW had built a commanding 47-25 lead by half-time and the game was over as a contest. Continue reading
LACEY LOWDOWN 