Basketball

Tigers Men Through To 2025 NBL1 South Grand Final

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The Tigers Men are through to the NBL1 South Grand Final after defeating Knox 89-86 in another dramatic game of Basketball.

Knox finished the 2025 regular season on top with a 17-5 record compared to the Tigers 14-8 record which was good enough for sixth (3rd to 7th all had 14-8 records).

Knox led 27-25 at the end of the first period and extended the lead out of eight at halftime, the Tigers could make no inroads in the third period as both sides put in twenty points apiece.

Once again, the Tigers had to storm back, and it was with 3:38 to go that a second Harrison Froling free throw gave the Tigers a taste of the lead, Knox got it back with 3:20 to go before Michael Wearne hit a three with 3:09 remaining to make it 86-84.

There was no scoring for just over two minutes before Knox hit two free throws with 59 seconds left to tie the game, both sides then spent the next 49 seconds trying to get the next score before Jack Purchase hit a three with ten seconds remaining to give the Tigers the lead.

It wasn’t over as Knox sent up two three-point attempts to try and tie the game, the first led to an offensive rebound and the second shot, it missed, and Jack Purchase grabbed the rebound to end the game.

Tom Wilson scored 42 points in the game; the next highest scoring player was Knox’s Tad Dufelmeier who scored 22 points.

The Tigers making the Grand Final is something special, it has been a long 11 years for Melbourne Tigers fans, the Tigers had a couple of bumpy years post-United, but the win total started to rise from season to season, faith grew and now the Tigers are a healthy basketball club that stands a win away from the title.

It won’t be easy, Sandringham is awaiting the Tigers, and they are a good team but so are the Tigers and so we watch and hope one last time on August 16, 2025, from 7:30pm that the Tigers can win again at the State Basketball Centre.

Go Tigers.

Opportunity Knox For Tigers

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The Melbourne Tigers Mens team has made the Preliminary Final of the 2025 NBL1 season after defeating Kilsyth 84-83.

The Tigers were all but done at the end of the third period after Kilsyth led at the end of the first period by two points, the margin was one point at the half and then Kilsyth poured in 30 points to 17 in the third to lead by fourteen.

The Tigers fought back in the last period and when Harrison Froling put in a two pointer with five seconds left, it put the Tigers up 84-83 and Kilsyth still had a chance to snatch back the lead, a foul against Jack Purchase with two seconds left put Kilsyth on the line and in moments of high sporting drama, Hamish MacDonald missed his two free throws and Tom Wilson collected the rebound to seal the dramatic win for the Tigers by the narrowest of margins.

August 9 at 7:30pm sees the Tigers travelling to Dandenong Basketball Stadium to take on the Knox Raiders for the right to go into the Grand Final.

Tigers fans have been hungry for success ever since Larry Kestelman in 2014 took away the Tigers in the NBL leaving the Tigers in Big V and the then SEABL competition and now they are two wins away from winning the NBL1 South title.

Whatever happens, it has been a wonderful season and hopefully the start of a great era for the Tigers.

2025 season catchup

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Sorry fellow Tigers fans for a delay in how the season is going, life can get quite busy, one day you’re thinking about Round 3 and the next it is Round 7.

Tigers vs. Diamond Valley

It was a mixed bag for the Tigers against Diamond Valley, the Women’s team lost 90-81 and the Men won 78-62.

Tigers vs. Dandenong

It was a clean sweep against Dandenong; the Women won a close one 82-80, the major scorers were Sara Blicavs (21pts), Isobel Borlase (20pts) and Eve Braslis (19pts) in a game where the Tigers outscored the Rangers in the first, third and fourth periods with Dandenong outscoring the Tigers by seven in the second.

The Tigers Men won 89-81 thanks to the Tigers putting scoring 34 points in the last period, Tom Wilson top scored for the Tigers with 25pts followed by Jack Purchase with 19 points and Michael Wearne rounded out the Top 3 scorers with 18 points.

Tigers. vs. Nunawading

It was a battle of the former NBL clubs and sadly it was not the Tigers’ day as both the Women and the Men were defeated.

While the Tigers led at the end of the first period, the Spectres scored 24, 24 and 29 points in the next three periods to win 95-74, Indiah Bowyer top scored with 26pts followed by Isobel Borlase with 23pts and Ella Tofaeono with 11 points to round out the Top 3.

The Men had a slow start, ending the first period down 23-11, they outscored the Spectres in each other the remaining periods but fell one point short, the scores were 77-76 with Tom Wilson scoring 30pts, Jack Purchase 16pts and Mason Gaze 12pts.

Tigers vs. Eltham

The Tigers had a mixed bag of results, the Women won, and the Men lost, the Women were down 25-18 at the end of the first period, clawed back some ground in the second, set up the win in the third with a 21-9 effort and withstood a 29-17 charge in the last to win 86-81.

Sara Blicavs top scored for the Tigers with 36 points, Isobel Borlase had 19 points and Eve Braslis had 18 to round out the Top 3 scorers for the team.

The Men lost their game 87-85 but will always be remembered for Jack Purchase scoring 55 points in the game.

Eltham led at the end of the first, Melbourne stole the lead at the end of the second, Eltham struck back in the third to take a two point lead and both teams scored 25 points in the fourth period allowing Eltham to win by two points, it was a game that ended dramatically as the Tigers were pinged with a foul with one second left while holding a one point lead, Eltham sank all three free throws to win the game.

Tigers vs. Ballarat

Time to time, Ballarat dines out on the fact that they beat the Tigers NBL team in the 1989 VBA Grand Final but on this occasion, it was the Tigers turn to dine out on some miners as the Tigers achieved the clean sweep in convincing fashion.

A 29-21 opening period set the tone for the Women as the second period had a slower tempo in scoring with the teams scoring 13-6 in the Tigers favour.

The Tigers blew open the game in the third period scoring 21 points to seven and outscored the Miners 19-15 in the last period to win 82-49.

Sienna Harvey top scored with 21 points followed by Eve Braslis 18 points and Indiah Bowyer rounded out the Top 3 with 16 points.

The Tigers Men had a tougher time of it, both teams scored 24 points to end the first period, the Tigers got some breathing room by outscoring the Miners 22-16 to lead by six at the main break.

The third period was the big difference maker as the Tigers hammered the Miners 29 to 12 to have a comfortable 23-point lead, the fourth period was high scoring, but the Tigers outscored the Miners 28-26 to take home the 103-78 win.

Tom Wilson top scored with 29 points; Jack Purchase had 23 points and Mason Gaze rounded out the Top 3 with 22 points.

Tigers vs. Frankston

The Tigers Women racked up consecutive win No. 3 by defeating Frankston, the Tigers led the first period by two points before the Blues taken the half by four points, the Tigers struck back in the third to take a three-point lead before extending their lead to six and taking the win.

Sienna Harvey led the scoring for the second consecutive game with 23 points followed by Eve Braslis with 20 points and Indiah Bowyer with 17 points.

It was not a good night for the Tigers Men as they were blown out of the water by the Blues, the Blues outscored the Tigers 30-19 in the first before almost doubling their lead in the second to lead by 21 points at half time.

Frankston continued to inflict pain on the Tigers in the third by extending their lead out to 29 points before the Tigers outscored the Blues 23-14 to end the game 89-69 making it a game of two halves.

Tom Wilson top scored with 15 points followed by Jack Purchase with 13 points and Mason Gaze and Christopher Arcidiacono with 9 points each.

Mixed bag for the Tigers

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After starting the season 0-4, the Tigers Men have moved up to 5-6 after defeating the Ballarat Miners and claiming the ownership of the SIXT Cup.

Ballarat of course is the team that likes to dine out on the fact that they once beat the NBL team in 1989, that Tigers team was on the up after some barren years, beating the 1992 team would have been an entirely different story.

The win puts them thirteenth on the ladder and have Nunawading up next who are currently 9th with a 6-5 record.

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The Tigers Women have slipped down to tenth on the ladder after losing 101-92 to Ballarat, they now have a 5-6 record and their opposition this week (Nunawading) is eighteenth with a 2-9 record, a record that we hope to make 2-10 as the Tigers battle to keep touch with eighth spot (Frankston with a 5-5 record).

The season is going pretty quickly, there are just nine games to go for our Tigers and hopefully the two Tigers teams can win 50% or better of those nine to make a year of it, it has already been a good year and more success can take the club even further.

Meanwhile it was ten years ago today that the Tigers NBL team was turned into Melbourne United as its owner wanted a bigger slice of the Victorian pie, some fans stayed with the team through the changes, some fans are originally walking away rejoined the team after they had achieved some success and some fans never went back to Melbourne and the NBL and stayed with the Tigers as they rebuilt through BigV, SEABL and NBL1.

It has been a long ten years following the Tigers, we haven’t had a whole lot of success at NBL1 level, but everything is on the up for the Tigers from players to sponsorship, there is still a lot of journeying left to do and we’re going to be here for it.

Four games in

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Four games in and it is a mixed bag of results for the Melbourne Tigers, here are how things are looking at the moment.

Women

The Women are 2-2 having won their first two and losing their last two, this puts them in ninth position but they in touch with the leaders.

The seven-point loss to Ringwood was a game that could have gone either way, the third period was the difference in the two teams and the loss to Knox was determined in the second and third periods as the Tigers were outscored thirteen points each period.

Jade Melbourne is among the leaders in points, assists and is leading steals, Abbey Sutherland is co-leading the block averages.

Coming up is Waverley (2-2) and Diamond Valley (1-2), two interesting games ahead for the women who have the potential to end the weekend at 4-2.

Men

The Men are 0-4 to start the season, they opened with a six-point loss to Dandenong, a fifteen-point loss to Nunawading, a six-point loss to Ringwood and a thirty-two-point loss to Knox so it is a mixed bag of losses.

The six-point losses show that just a few event changes could have resulted in wins, but the fifteen and thirty-two-point losses are concerning.

Tom Wilson is leading scorer for the Men followed by Mason Gaze, Tom is just outside the Top 20 of the league and Mason is just outside the Top 30.

There are no home games this week as the Tigers travel to Waverley and Diamond Valley, Waverley are two and two and Diamond Valley are 0-3 so there is a good chance of picking up W’s to get the season going.

The 2024 Season is Here!

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Tonight, is the night, the start of the 2024 NBL1 South season for the Melbourne Tigers and it is an exciting time for Tigers fans.

There is something different about the Tigers this year, we have all seen that the club has worked hard to secure new partnerships with businesses and recruiting has gone well, the club even secured the services of Jade Melbourne for a couple of games before she has to go back to the WNBA.

Tom Wilson is back for the Men too; he spent a couple of years playing Aussie Rules for Collingwood including 8 games in the AFL up to the end of last year, he’ll be working with Jack Purchase, Mason Gaze, Michael Wearne and many fine Tigers.

The Tigers even have Tigers TV which is cool, get to know more about what is going on and more.

Life has been a bit crazy the last few years but hopefully this blog will be worked on weekly, no matter if nobody, one person or many people read it.

Go Tigers.

Tigers Sweep the Spectres……Just!

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The Melbourne Tigers got their first sweep of the season, though it almost wasn’t to be thanks to a late charge by the Spectres Men.

The Tigers Women moved to 2-2 after comfortably defeating Nunawading 88 to 71.

It was a fairly even first half with the Tigers ahead by six points at the half, they doubled their lead by the end of the third period and then increased it by five in the last to win by 17 points and even up their season.

Samantha Simons top scored for the Tigers with 23 points followed by Jade Melbourne with 18 points, Jade topped the Rebounds and Assists with twelve and eleven of them respectively.

54.24% of two-point attempts went in and 35% of three-point attempts went in, the Tigers three point shooting improved in the second half with 50% going in both periods compared to 25% and 16.67% in the first two periods.

The Men were on court next their new look and the new looked seemed to have worked wonders as they scored 29 points in the first period to take a comfortable 16 point lead.

It was a 23-point lead at half time and most teams would feel comfortable with that big of a lead, but Nunawading are a good team and they outscored the Tigers by 10 in the third to reel the margin in to a more manageable 13 points.

Melbourne’s 3-point percentage dropped from a high of 60% in the second period to 0% in the last as they missed all three attempts, Nunawading had eleven attempts with three of them landing.

With twelve seconds to go it was a 80-79 score when a foul brought Jack Purchase to the line and he put in both to move the margin back out to three, Nunawading had two attempts for a three to tie but both missed, the Tigers won 82-79 to win their first game of the season.

So, both Tigers teams are on the board with wins, they’ve got Dandenong next and hopefully they can get another sweep and start charging up the ladder.

Go Tigers.



Three Games Into 2023

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The 2023 NBL1 South Season is three games in, quite unbelievable but true.

The Women got their first year of the year last weekend by beating Keilor 81-52 after losing their opening games 79-54 (Ballarat) and 86-78 (Waverley), hopefully wins will continue to come now that one is on the board.

The Men have lost their games 92-68 (Ballarat), 91-88 (Waverley) and 84-72 (Keilor), the Tigers form has been patchy, either they’ve been blown away in the first period or have a good start and get run down.

It seems over the years the Tigers Men are playing games where they suddenly get the yips and the opposition bound down the court and score multiple times and the team cannot recover, it doesn’t last long but the damage is always done.

Coming up on Thursday April 20 is Nunawading, it is always good to come up against fellow ex-NBL sides like the Spectres, the Geelong Supercats and the Frankston Bears.

Having games on Thursday nights does trip people up because they are used to Friday to Sunday games but NBL1 decided to speed up the season by adding in another day of games.

It seems to be a long couple of years for the Tigers in terms of success but at least we’re not the 0-26 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (put 0-26 in google and you’ll get the Bucs) or the St Kilda Saints who didn’t win between the 1897 VFL Season and early in the 1900 season, the important thing to remember is that things will get better as the season goes on.

Go Tigers.

Harrower’s retirement brings back Tigers WNBL memories

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This writer was too young to remember the fact that the Melbourne Tigers had an WNBL team but the knowledge of the team existing in that league is something to be proud of as Melbourne has had teams in the very best leagues that Australia can offer.

The recent retirement of WNBL legend Kristi Harrower who played for the Melbourne Tigers among other great teams has brought memories of the Tigers days in the WNBL back to many fans, perhaps this will spur on Tigers fans to fill in the gaps where there is a lack of recorded history of the side in the league.

The Tigers didn’t win any titles after being denied twice by Adelaide Lightning but perhaps one day a new Tigers team will take to the court and win the elusive WNBL title and join a few clubs to have a NBL and WNBL title to their name.

Tigers fans are readying for a big 2015

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Melbourne Tigers fans haven’t had a great last half of 2014 but it has ended on a high note with reports that the Tigers are committed to rebounding through the VJBL and BigV before tackling SEABL in 2016.

Those in charge of the mammoth task are understood to have a strategic plan in place for the Tigers to live on as a multi league Basketball team with no ties to Melbourne United and the plan will become clearer to fans as 2015 goes on.

The reports could not have come at a better time with the Dragons, United/Ballers and Magic getting all the news attention in recent weeks, it is hoped that with the news of the rebuild it will get Melbourne Tigers interest fans back from Melbourne United who are at the moment losing fans to the push for the Dragons to re-enter the league.

Fans are also hoping that the Tigers would stop by referred to as a ‘brand’ and instead referred to as a team for Melbourne and the Tigers are two names that go as one complete name and no part of the name is  interchangeable at any time.