Ballarat Miners take on a different looking Melbourne Tigers side in their South East Australian Basketball League clash at the Mars Minerdome on Saturday night.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
While the teams played each other just last weekend in Melbourne, Ballarat GMHBA Miners coach Eric Hayes expected a tougher game against the Tigers with their side bolstered by the addition of some key players.
The Tigers’ second leading scorer Ari Stewart returns to the line up, while former National Basketball League player Daryl Corletto is set to take to the court for the first time this season after being sidelined with an injury.
For the Miners, forward Craig Moller and young gun Sam Short are looking forward to taking on Melbourne after both missing out on last weekend’s 31-point win.
But the Miners lose Illawarra Hawks forward Tim Coenraad, who dominated in a fill in role for the Miners that spanned two matches.
He top scored in the game against Melbourne.
Fans can breath a sigh of relief with import Davon Usher remaining in the side after suffering a corked thigh late in the match against Kilsyth Cobras last week, which kept him on the bench.
While the Miners have only lost one of their five home games at the Mars Minerdome so far this season, Moller said the players were not about to get complacent.
“We’ve had some really good wins but we haven’t beaten a top side like Mt Gambier or Nunawading yet,” he said.
“And our three losses haven’t been great, we’ve been blown out a couple of times.”
Moller said the players were expecting to come up against a “pretty strong outfit” after their preview of the Tigers this week.
Nearing the halfway mark of the season, one of the major focuses for the team is to keep the momentum going after achieving a strong seven win, three loss record from the first eight rounds.
“Last year we were at about the same stage and we just fell away for the back end of the season,” Moller said.
“We really need to knuckle down and focus on these next couple of games, especially before the long weekend, and put ourselves in the best possible spot going forward.”
Moller said one of the ways the Miners were doing this was by focusing on their training standards.
“If we train hard we believe we will play hard and the rest will just come from that,” he said.
Moller said he still had another level he could go to, as did the team.
He believed this year’s recruitment strategy of focusing on getting good people first, then basketball talent, had benefited the side.
“We had a new team at the start of the year and now we’re really starting to play together and string some wins,” Moller said.
“All season we’ve had a really good feeling around the team.
“We think we are going somewhere and we think we can do something special this year, but we’re not there yet.”