Pre-season in Melbourne

Eltham Dandenong Tournament

Australia Day Long Weekend

Unfortunately, this year Basketball NSW didn't organise a trip to Victoria for the pre-season, so we were the only representative team from NSW.

Melbourne has consistently produced the strongest teams in the country, which is why our coach Brett said it was important that we made the tournament. He also said - just a little hopefully to the boys - that he could count the number of times his teams had one in Melbourne on one hand.

By the end of the weekend Brett definitely needed two hands to count the wins and may have to resort to taking off his socks and shoes when we return to Melbourne over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in June.

Hills flew into Melbourne under the radar as in the past most NSW teams at this age group have been easily rolled by the powerful Victoria teams. In addition most of the Victorian teams already had two months training and game experience on Hills.

Watching the pre-game warm-ups of the other teams, it was apparent that they weren’t expecting to be pushed as they laughed and joked around. By contrast our boys had their game faces on and generally had already dropped straight into the warm-ups without being told to by the coaches.

KNOX
Our first game was against Knox, a club that has consistently produced some of the strongest teams in the country.

It was a tight tussle in the first half with the scoring see-sawing. However in the third quarter, in a pattern that would recur through most of the tournament, we began to break away. Our big men – particularly Addam and Arran – worked well down low scoring at a high percentage. At the top of the key Mitchell was outstanding picking up steals and setting up plays off fast breaks.

As a group we had very evenly balanced scoreboard. Perhaps our only concern were some loose passes caused in a large part by Knox’s in-your-face defence, but when we slowed down and worked through our offensive patterns we were very effective indeed.

We finished the game with a 32-22 victory against a stunned Knox team.

KILSYTH

Our next game was one of the most physical of the tournament. We came up against a tough Kilsyth team that wasn’t afraid to bang bodies down low.

In this game we keyed off some mismatches generated by our length and Will played a great inside game, sneaking in behind the defence to get some key buckets down the stretch.

This was a game where the boys played a great brand of unselfish basketball with assists spread throughout the team.

Once again our key plays came in the third quarter, where we jumped away. The great depth in this team could be the reason for this as it allowed Hills to play at a constant high-intensity for the full 32 minutes.

On the second day we expected to be a marked team with our unexpected results. However it didn’t appear that the news was getting around, because once again teams seemed to be very casual through their warm-ups.

MCKINNON

We played McKinnon at 11.30am the next morning. This was a blow-out game, where were a step quicker in all facets of the game.

McKinnon had already been on the wrong end of the blow-out scorelines the previous day and we added to their woes getting to the basket at will. The whole team shot an extraordinary 57% from the field.

Brane and Mark had contrasting styles but both feasted down low. Mark’s consistently snatched offensive rebounds with his speed while Brane used his strength to create space and make easy shots down low.

At the same our point guards were on fire at the top of the key, with Jay and Luke dropping shots from beyond the arc every time the McKinnon defence tried to collapse on our bigs.

This was undoubtedly our most efficient game of the tournament. We finished a dominant performance against McKinnon with a scoreline of 71-27.

MELBOURNE 2

The fourth game in our division was against Melbourne 2. Melbourne had gone down the day before to Sturt on a free throw called as a result of foul from a hail-Mary heave in the last one second of the game.

This was an emotional game, with Melbourne 2 out to recover from that loss and force their way into the semi-final.

However, they were up against Hills boys were fired up from their success and with a point to prove in Australia's basketball capital.

The game was an arm wrestle throughout the first half with both teams playing tough defence, coming in at 15-15.

Jayden was a key defender at the top of the key and made some explosive drives to the bucket that set Melbourne back on their heels.

Once again the third quarter proved to be the decider. Brett put in the great wall of Hills -Arran, Brane and Addam - who turned the game with some aggressive offence and defence. A couple of key blocks by Addam and a three point play by Brane took the wind out of Melbourne and we started to build a solid lead.

By the fourth quarter we were completely in control and finished the game with a 46-33 win.

Despite their despair at the loss, Melbourne 2 actually made it through to the elimination finals based on a points for and against.

STURT (SA)

In the meantime, with four wins under their belt Hills stormed into the elimination finals where they came up against an old foe, Sturt from South Australia.

This was a war, with the lead constantly changing hands. In the final quarter the score was 31-29 to Hills when Mitch made a looping pass behind the defence that was picked up by Will. He was fouled on the shot but sunk both.

A few seconds later off the back a steal by Mitch and a fast break by Jay, we were fouled again on the shot and Jay nailed another point.

After getting another stop and then starting to run through our offence, Arran took a pass from a give-and-go move missed the contested layup, pulled down a rebound and then fought hard against an equally tall opponent who fouled him. Arran iced both free throws and suddenly the score was 36-29 in our favour with 1 min 32 secs to go.

That passage of play was enough to seal the deal and we finished with a tight 39-30 win giving Brett a handful of wins.

DIAMOND VALLEY EAGLES

In the semi final we came up against the Diamond Valley Eagles.

This was a team that were physically bigger and stronger than Hills. They were able to take on our boys inside and we struggled to get boards at both ends of the court.

Under pressure, we found ourselves hurrying our shots and letting the Eagles get inside almost at will. At the end of the first half we were down 23-8.

That was when Brett had a talk to the boys about keeping focused, to dig deep and fight and not give up.

While we never recovered from the first half deficit, we won the second half 22-18.

Gadget (aka Mark) turned out to be a real mismatch issue for the Eagles. His agility and length made him a serious problem for the Eagles, as he picked up rebounds at both ends of the court and was able to get into clear space to take unchallenged shots.

We finished on the wrong end of a 41-30 scoreline but discovered that when we knuckled down we could come back against tough teams no matter what there size. We left with a real sense that we could indeed beat the Eagles.

Hills came out of the competition ranked third behind Melbourne 1 (first) and the Eagles (second).

This was an impressive early result and one we can certainly improve on when we return to Melbourne on the Queens Birthday long weekend.

It was also great preparation for the Gosford Coastal Classic where we would get our first look at some of the teams we would come up against in the Sydney Junior Championships.