Last week there was a good deal of deliberation around the selection of the Bartercard NBL Rookie of the Week award – shared by Richie Edwards and Derone Raukawa. This week required very little thought.
It’s not often any player scores 40 points in a game, never mind a rookie.
Richie Edwards did just that for the Canterbury Rams against the Manawatu Jets last Saturday. A 15 from 25 field goal shooting effort fueled the first 40 points effort in the NBL this season. He added 10 of 12 from the charity stripe but unfortunately his effort was not enough to gather the Cantabs their second victory of the season, the Rams going down 108-101.
There were some other useful performers in Round 5 but they were only vying for the minor places.
Derone Raukawa earned himself a starting spot for the Jets after his heroics last week but that was about as good as it got – just 5 points against the Rams for the former Rangitoto College student.
The scorers in the Nelson Giants v Taranaki Mountain Airs fixture had the Taranaki back up guard Nash Oh listed as Nash Or. Not deterred by the name change Oh picked up 7 points and 4 rebounds although his points were accumulated in the final quarter when the Giants were 20 points to the good.
Nelson’s Gus Riley accumulated 11 points in the same game enjoying 23 minutes court time.
Oh didn’t see much court time the previous evening when the Mountain Airs caused an upset in Dunedin, beating the Nuggets 86-84. However Tony Tolovae who is proving a very useful acquisition for the Nuggets played almost 22 minutes accumulating 7 points/4 rebounds.
Zac Carter put in his best performance of the season for the Waikato Pistons on Sunday in Hamilton. In 31 minutes Carter collected 12 points and 6 rebounds but it wasn’t enough to stop the Hawks gathering their seventh win of the season and moving to the top of the NBL ladder.
NBL Rookie of the Week was clearly Richie Edwards, Zac Carter was a distant second and Gus Riley just edged out Tony Tolovae in third spot.
LACEY LOWDOWN 