Category Archives: Breakers by Numbers

Nov 07 2022
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Breakers by Numbers, NZ Breakers

Skipper returns but Breakers defeated

The Sydney Kings continued their remarkable sequence of results on the road as they inflicted an 81-77 loss on the Sky Sport Breakers at Spark Arena on Sunday.

The Kings have now won 17 straight away games, the victory taking them to 7-2 and outright first in the ladder. It’s not all doom and gloom for the Sky Sport Breakers as they sit a lofty second on the NBL table with a 6-3 record entering into the two-week international break.

The Breakers looked dead and buried at half-time trailing 45-27 and with the margin still 18 points at the three-quarter mark a tame finish looked likely. However the Breakers poured in 31 fourth quarter points as Izayah Le’afa and Tom Abercrombie inspired a spirited comeback.

The Breakers reduced the deficit to two points in the dying seconds but with the clock their enemy the home team couldn’t get any closer.

It had been 33 months and 72 games since skipper Tom Abercrombie felt the warmth of home crowd support and the Breakers veteran received a terrific ovation as he entered the arena for his 372nd appearance for the club. He demonstrated that he had lost none of his defensive ability or his hops – a trademark fourth quarter dunk complimenting two earlier triples.

Here are the latest club records and milestones:

Lost 81-77 v Sydney Kings at Spark Arena on Sunday

Will McDowell-White nabbed his second double-double of the season in accumulating 10 points and 12 rebounds.

His 10 points moved him past 400 points for the Breakers – the 35th player to reach this milestone. Phill Jones was the first to reach the mark late in the inaugural 2003-04 season while Tai Webster, who was still at Forrest Hill Primary School when Jones made his 400th point, was the most recent in the 2020-21 season.

Tom Vodanovich played his 100th NBL game rather fittingly against the team he won a championship with last season and suited up for on 67 occasions. He first played for the Breakers between 2018 and 2020 before shifting to Sydney for a productive two seasons.

Barry Brown Jr is proving to be a model of consistency. With 22 points against the Kings the Breakers leading scorer this season has now scored between 22 and 24 points in five of the six games he has played.

Izayah Le’afa moved past the century mark in points this season with his 15 points on 7 from 12 shooting.

Upcoming

The Breakers have another home game to look forward to on Sunday November 20 when they take on the Adelaide 36ers at Trusts Arena, 48 hours after a match up in Tasmania against the Jack Jumpers.

Those two games follow the FIBA window when both the Tall Blacks and Australian Boomers will play two World Cup Qualifying games.

Dan Fotu and Alex McNaught headed off with the Tall Blacks on Monday morning to contest the Tall Blacks away games against Jordan on November 13 and Lebanon three days earlier.

Oct 31 2022
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ANBL, Breakers by Numbers

Breakers on a high despite Loe low.

NZ Breakers coach Mody Moar and Barry Brown Jr of the Breakers. New Zealand Breakers v Tasmania JackJumpers, Round 2 of the 2022-23 NBL Season at Spark Arena, Auckland, New Zealand on Friday 7 October 2022. © Mandatory credit: Andrew Cornaga / http://www.photosport.nz

The Sky Sport Breakers sit atop the NBL ladder alongside the Sydney Kings – who they face at Spark Arena next Sunday  – after demolishing the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers 94-62 at Spark Arena.

The win was achieved despite the loss of in-form big man Rob Loe who took a head knock in the opening quarter and didn’t return to the fray. 

Without his running mate, Derek Pardon stepped up posting his second double-double of the season with 15 points and 14 rebounds while Tom Vodanovich enjoyed extended minutes to record 10 points and 5 rebounds. Jarrell Brantley got the better of his opposite number Rashard Kelly in recording 11 points and 8 rebounds in just 23 minutes.

Import combo-guard Barry Brown Jr was once again a major spark off the bench – his game high 24 points being his fourth 20+ points haul in just five appearances by the American.

The victory moves the Breakers to 6-2 on the season, already one win more than the club engineered in the whole of the 2021-22 season.

What made the most recent win even more meritorious was the fact that Tasmania had had a week to prepare for the game whereas the Breakers had spent all day Saturday travelling back from Adelaide via Sydney. 

On Friday, the Breakers were equally impressive as they recorded their biggest ever win in Adelaide thumping the much vaunted 36’ers 99-70; the Breakers fourth win from five away games. 

The 4-1 road start has only been bettered twice in Breakers history. In 2008-09, in the second season under the influence of Tony Ronaldson and Kirk Penney, the Breakers started the season with 7 wins in the first 8 away games while in the 2010-11 championship campaign it was a 6-1 start on Australian soil

Here are the latest club records and milestones:

Won 99-70 at Adelaide 36’ers on Friday night

Jarrell Brantley had season highs in points (22), rebounds (9), assists (3) and steals (4). He also became the first Breaker to score 100 points this season.

Izayah Le’afa , with 15 points, passed the 500 career points milestone in his 65th NBL game.

With a season high equalling 7 dimes Will McDowell-White moved past Finn Delany into 11th spot on the Breakers all-time assists list – he now has 231 to his name at 4.4 per game.

Won 94-62 v Tasmanian Jack Jumpers at Spark Arena on Sunday

Rob Loe played his 150th NBL game against the Jack Jumpers (28 of those with Cairns Taipans) while Tom Vodanovich played his 99th game in the League – 67 of those with the Sydney Kings.

With 24 points Barry Brown Jr became the second Breaker to pass the 100-point mark for the season.

Upcoming

The Breakers have a mouth-watering home game against top Sydney Kings on Sunday before the NBL goes into recess for 11 days to accommodate the next FIBA window when both the Tall Blacks and Australian Boomers will play two World Cup Qualifying games apiece.

Will McDowell-White needs 8 more points to reach 400 points for the Breakers.

Cam Gliddon is closing in on a couple of notable milestones. He needs just 6 rebounds to total 1,000 career boards and 23 points to pass 3,000 career points spanning 11 seasons in the NBL.

Oct 24 2022
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ANBL, Breakers by Numbers

Breakers overcome Cairns and the NBL schedulers

The Sky Sport Breakers celebrated their 600th NBL game with a 68-64 victory in Cairns on Sunday afternoon in the midst of a ridiculous schedule – more on that shortly.

Missing their opening 14 shots the Breakers scored just 5 points in the first quarter yet somehow recovered to force the win. Those handful of points equaled the Sydney Kings unwanted record of the least number of points in the opening period of an NBL game.

However, led by 24 points from Barry Brown Jr, the Breakers recovered to trail 32-23 at half-time and by just five (50-45) at three-quarter time before grinding out the win in the fourth to leap frog the Taipans into second place on the NBL ladder.

Given the Breakers were playing for the fourth time in 10 days, and a fourth away game in their opening six fixtures, a start of 4 wins and 2 losses probably exceeds expectations given also that the club only won 5 from 28 games in the whole of last season.

Now back to the schedule in which the NBL boffins certainly have done the Breakers no favours. Having played all 28 games in Australia last season and 29 of 36 across the ditch the season before you would have thought a little sympathy may have been forthcoming from those in charge of scheduling at NBL HQ.

Not a chance – instead, just three weeks into the season, the Breakers have already visited three Australian states, undertaken five international flights and a couple of domestic hops.

It doesn’t get any easier this week for Round 5. They return from Cairns today (Monday), fly to Adelaide on Thursday (for a game against the 36ers on Friday) then return on Saturday to play the Jack Jumpers – who won’t have played for 7 days – at Spark Arena on Sunday.

Here are the latest club records and milestones:

Lost 99-77 against South East Melbourne Phoenix at Trusts Arena on Thursday

Reuben Te Rangi and South East Melbourne have won two straight at Trusts Arena although the games were played 17 months apart!

You might recall that the Breakers returned to New Zealand after playing 29 consecutive road games in the 2021 season, completing the campaign with seven straight games on home soil. The finale was played at Trusts with SEM claiming an 83-78 win.

Only Tom Abercrombie, Rob Loe and Will McDowell-White remain on the Breakers books from that first Covid affected season.

Loe received a blooded cheek after copping some friendly fire from Tom Vodanovich but returned to snare an eighth rebound in the game and chalk up his 600th NBL career rebound (86 of those during his single season with the Cairns Taipans). 

At Cairns Taipans on Sunday Won 68-64.

Will McDowell-White played his 50th game for the Breakers in Cairns. 

Barry Brown Jr, with 24 points, took his tally to 60 points in his three outings. With Derek Pardon averaging 11.3ppg (and 7.3 rebounds) and Jarrell Brantley 13ppg the three imports have settled in nicely.

Achieving victory scoring 68 points is the lowest total the Breakers have scored to gain a win since the leaky roof victory at Illawarra in February 2020. Breakers won 65-52 after the game was called off with three minutes to play in that one.

Otherwise we have to go back to New Year’s Eve 2012 when the Breakers eked out a 66-61 win, also in Cairns – a certain Cedric Jackson scored 17 points that night.

For the record the Breakers are 301-299 in those 600 games.

Upcoming

Izayah Le’afa is four points shy of 500 career points with Will McDowell-White needing 16 more for 400 career points.

Tom Vodanovich and Rob Loe are closing in on a couple of milestone games. Loe will play NBL career game number 150 next Sunday against the Jack Jumpers while Vodanovich needs to log three more appearances for his 150th.

Oct 19 2022
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Breakers by Numbers

Breakers Rolling – Numbers Galore

There are a swag of numbers to report after the Sky Sport Breakers impressive round three road double at South East Melbourne (won 85-77) and Illawarra Hawks (won 88-62).

Beginning his tenure as Breakers Head Coach with 3 wins in 4 games Mody Maor has easily bettered the start of his six predecessors at the club.

Inaugural Head Coach Jeff Green went 1-3 with his replacement Frank Arsego replicating that start. Andrej Lemanis tip-toed in with four straight losses before a victory in game number five while Dean Vickerman won his first game and then suffered four consecutive losses.

Paul Henare also won his opener but three straight losses followed with Dan Shamir also claiming just a singled W in his first four matches in charge.

It’s worth noting that Thursday’s home game at Trusts Arena against South East Melbourne Phoenix will be the 599thNational Basketball League (NBL) game the Sky Sport Breakers have played. 

Here are the numbers from those two excellent away victories.

At South East Melbourne

Izayah Le’afa played against his former club South East Melbourne Phoenix for the first time since his off-season move to the Breakers. It couldn’t have gone any better for the point guard as he produced a double-double of 14 points and 10 assist – a career best in dimes.

Development Player Alex McNaught, showing the defensive prowess that he has displayed in the NZNBL with the Nelson Giants, became Breaker number 140 when debuting against SEM. A Schools National Championship winner with St Kentigern College in 2019, the 20-year old came up with 2 steals, a block, a rebound and 2 points in 13 minutes of high energy, high quality action.

At Illawarra Hawks

The victory completed the first sequence of three consecutive wins since the end of the 2019-20 season when the Breakers won 4 straight and 6 of the last 7. It’s probably no coincidence that was the last season of “normality” before the two COVID interrupted campaigns.

Will McDowell-White’s commanding performance produced a striking stats line of 17 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals. The Australian Boomer now has 210 assists for the club going past Shea Ili (207) and within striking distance of Finn Delany’s 221 (Delany 11th all-time on the dimes list).

Jamaal Brantley, stepping in for the injured Barry Brown Jr became Breaker #141.

Playing alongside brother Jarrell the siblings became the first brothers to play as imports, on the same team, in NBL history. They are the third set of brothers to play for the Breakers after Tai and Corey Webster and Dan and Isaac Fotu.  

Rob Loe has moved ahead of Cedric Jackson into 10th spot on the club’s all-time offensive rebounding list with 159 ‘O’ boards. He’s now chasing down Finn Delany and Gary Wilkinson with 163 and 167 offensive rebounds respectively.

The Breakers centre also joins Shea Ili as the 10th winningest Breaker. The pair have been on winning Breakers teams on 52 occasions – only 17 players have won 50 games or more in Breakers colours with Tom Abercrombie’s 210 successes clear of Mika Vukona’s 198 at the top of the list. 

Upcoming

Barring injury or illness McDowell-White will play his 50th game for the Breakers in Cairns on Sunday afternoon.

Breakers Alumni

Finn Delany and Yanni Wetzell, teammates at the Breakers last season, are both now playing in Germany.

The pair went head to head for the first time a couple of days ago and it was Wetzell that came away with bragging rights as ALBA Berlin won a German Cup Round of 16 tie 98-95 against Bonn.

Wetzell scored a season high 23 points (9/10FG, 5/7FT) for Berlin while Delany notched 12 points for Bonn. Wetzell tied the contest in the closing minute after Bonn had led 93-91. He added two free throws with 20 seconds remaining as the reigning champions advanced to the semi-finals.

Oct 03 2022
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Breakers by Numbers, NZ Breakers

Good signs for the Breakers despite loss – some numbers of interest.

Mody Maor began his tenure as the 8th Breakers Head Coach, following Jeff Green, Frank Arsego, Andrej Lemanis, Dean Vickerman, Paul Henare, Kevin Braswell and Dan Shamir, with a 101-97 overtime loss at Melbourne United on Sunday.

It’s the second occasion the Breakers have been taken to overtime on the opening game of the season. The last time was two seasons ago when Tai Webster scored 34 points in a 94-91 loss at the Adelaide 36ers.

Despite the loss there was a lot to like about the Breakers performance.

New imports Derek Pardon (23 points, 12 rebounds and 2 blocks), and Barry Brown Jr (23 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists) both impressed on debut.

Pardon’s double-double is the first on debut for the Breakers since Rick Rickert posted 19 points and 12 rebounds against Cairns Taipans on the opening game of the 2007-08 season.

Will McDowell-White threatened a triple double with 9 points, 13 rebounds and 7 assists – those 13 assists a new career high.

Rob Loe continued the good form he displayed with the Auckland Tuatara in the NZNBL recording 12 points and 4 rebounds before retiring to the bench with a, hopefully not serious, ankle injury.

The other player in double figures was Izayah Le’afa, the Wellingtonian guard scoring 13 points on his Breakers debut.

Loe’s 12 points took him to 800 points for the Breakers. In addition with 108 games under his belt he sits 14th on the Breakers all-time appearance list. 

With 7 assists logged against Melbourne United McDowell-White needs just 3 more assists to tally 200 dimes for the club. After just 45 games he is already up to 13th on the Breakers all-time assists list, averaging 4.4 assists per game. 

The next assignment for the Breakers is a home game against the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers at Vector Arena on Friday night – October 7th, tip-off 7.30pm. Get along and support the team as they play the first home game since June 5, 2021.

Mar 12 2022
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Breakers by Numbers, NZ Breakers

When were the Breakers last able to put a full team on court?

If, as indicated on the Breakers social media posts, they field a full compliment of rostered players against Adelaide 36ers later today it will be the first time they have been able to do so in 18 games this season.

In fact it will be the first time a full contingent of players have hit the floor since May 1st 2021 when the Breakers beat Perth Wildcats 86-84, in Tasmania – 29 games ago! 

Off the back of three consecutive double-doubles, while way with the Tall Blacks at the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, Rob Loe was given a start against the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers. Significantly his 12 points more than doubled his scoring output for the season – in his previous 8 games (albeit with limited playing time) he had scored 11 points.

Perhaps more significantly Tom Abercrombie made a welcome return to the playing roster against Brisbane Bullets. Abercrombie only had 3 rebounds and a point but he did get a valuable 12 minutes game time under his belt.

In the same game Rasmus Bach played his 50th game for the club.

The Breakers leading scorers this season are:

Yanni Wetzell – 220 points @ 16.9ppg

Hugo Besson – 216 points @ 14.4ppg

Finn Delany 179 points @ 10.5ppg

Peyton Siva 151 points @12.6ppg

Finn Delany has moved up a place on a couple of the Breakers all-time records categories recently.

Delany is now up to 10th spot on the Breakers scoring list moving past Gary Wilkinson’s 1,423 points. With 1,437 career points Delany will soon move to ninth, the place currently occupied by Ben Pepper (1,451 points).

Currently with 681 rebounds Delany is also closing in on 700 career rebounds. Only Vukona (2356), Abercrombie (1,638), Pledger (1,293), Boucher (939), Pepper (935) and Jackson (749) have bettered that mark for the club.

Feb 14 2022
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Breakers by Numbers

Chasson Randle and Breakers Trivia

Chasson Randle replaces Jeremiah Martin in the import guard spot for the game against the Cairns Taipans on Monday night.

Randle, the 48th import to play for Sky Sport Breakers played 41 games for the Orlando Magic last season averaging 6.5ppg. In his sole outing for the Breakers back in December he scored 8 points against the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers.

Martin played 10 games for the Breakers averaging 12.3 points and 3.5 assists per game. Those 10 appearances are certainly not the least by a Breakers import as the list below shows.

Excluding short-term replacement player Jeremy Kendle who played 3 games last season, the record for the shortest tenure belongs to Glen Rice Junior who committed a number of indiscretions before being released after three appearances in the 2019-20 season.

Other imports to have played 10 games or less are:

4 Darnell Lazare (2013-14)

6 Ben Woodside (2016-17)

6 Lamar Patterson (2021)

9 Awvee Storey (2009-10)

9 Pierre Wooten (2006-7)

9 Kevin Dillard (2016-17)

10 David Stockton (2016-17)

Jan 17 2022
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Breakers by Numbers, Tall Blacks

Rob Loe becomes 16th Breakers centurion.

Rob Loe made his 100th appearance for the Sky Sport Breakers against Melbourne United on Friday evening. 

The 31 year-old has become the 16th Breakers centurion and the fourth graduate of Westlake Boys High School, after Tom Abercrombie, Kirk Penney and Corey Webster, to play 100 Breakers games.

He debuted for the Breakers in 2016 and is now in his fifth season with the club having had a sabbatical in 2018-19 playing 28 games for Cairns Taipans. He has accumulated 711 points, 390 rebounds and 125 assists in his Breakers career to date.

In 2009, in his final year at Westlake Boys, Loe performed outstandingly at the FIBA U19 World Championships in Auckland. At just 17 years – the youngest member of the team – he led the Junior Tall Blacks in scoring averaging 18.8ppg.

Loe made his Tall Blacks debut the same year and went on to cement his place as the starting centre at both the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain and the 2019 event in China. He averaged 11.0 points and 4.8 rebounds per game in China where he also scored at 52% (12/23) from beyond the arc. He was also a member of the bronze medal winning team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games averaging 9.4ppg and 5.0rpg. He has so far racked up 86 appearances in the black singlet.

The North Harbour representative enjoyed a standout career at St Louis University playing 133 games for the Billikens. Those 133 games, that included 121 starts, are a record number of Men’s NCAA Division I appearances by a Kiwi.

Following college Loe spent a season each at KAO Dramas (Greece) and Limburg United (Belgium)  before linking with the Breakers.

He won a NZNBL championship with the Wellington Saints in 2019 picking up the Stan Hill Award for Most Outstanding New Zealand Forward.

Full list of Breakers Centurions including total games played:

359 Tom Abercrombie 

354 Mika Vukona 

250 Paul Henare

238 Alex Pledger

236 Corey Webster

220 Dillon Boucher

179 CJ Bruton

160 Kirk Penney

147 Finn Delany

130 Cedric Jackson

130 Aaron Olson

125 Oscar Forman

118 Tim Behrendorff

103 Reuben Te Rangi

101 Rob Loe

100 Shea Ili

Jan 14 2022
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Breakers by Numbers

Yanni Wetzell up amongst Breakers elite

Yanni Wetzell has made and impressive start to his Sky Sport Breakers career with points tallies of 18, 20,25,12,20 and 27. Can he continue this hot run against Melbourne United tonight.

Wetzell ranks fourth in the NBL for scoring (20.3ppg), is tenth in rebounding (7.8rpg) and is second in field goal percentage at 66.7%.

Those four scores of 20 or more in the first six games have only previously been achieved by Mike Chappell (2003), Carlos Powell (2006), Kirk Penney (2007) and all three were chalked up in the era when games were of 48 minutes duration not the current 40.

Looking back, the numbers Carlos Powell put up in the 2006-07 season are astonishing. In addition to scoring the Breakers all-time single game record of 50 points against Melbourne Tigers he scored 20 points or more in 30 of the 33 games played by the Breakers that season – his lowest points tally was 13!

Back to Yanni, and in the win against Brisbane he became the first Breaker to score 100 points this season. In the same game Hugo Besson’s 12 points also took him past the century mark in his seventh game for the club.

Jan 06 2022
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Breakers by Numbers, Kiwi's Abroad

Latest Div I wrap – Sam Mennenga with a Bakers Dozen

Four former Harbour athletes have been involved in NCAA Division I men’s basketball games in the past 24-hours and the quartet have all been part of winning performances.

Sam Mennenga posted his fifth double-figure score of the season as Davidson College defeated Saint Joseph’s 88-73 for a convincing victory in their Atlantic-10 Conference opener. The former Westlake Boys High forward scored 13 points (5/9FG) and added 4 rebounds and a block. His career points tally moved beyond the 200 mark to stand at 212 from 33 games for Davidson.

Another ex-Westlake standout James Moors pulled down a season best 6 rebounds as Colorado State opened Mountain West Conference play with a 67-59 victory against Air Force.

The sophomore forward added 5 points (2/3FG) and an assist as Colorado State reinforced their #20 ranking with an 11thstraight win.

Taine Murray scored a couple of points as Virginia won 75-65 at Clemson to improve to 3-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

Travelling even better in the ACC are Sam Waardenburg and the University of Miami Cavaliers that boast a 4-0 record. After missing the last couple of games the former Rangitoto College star converted a steal and layup with virtually his first touch of the ball since December 20. He went on to post 7 points, 5 rebounds, a block and a steal as Miami squeezed past Syracuse 88-87 to move to 4-0.

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