Tigers Sweep the Spectres……Just!

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.



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Three Games Into 2023

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.

The 2023 Season

April 1 is not a joke this year as the Melbourne Tigers start playing in NBL1 South competition for the first time in 2023.

It is true that there hasn’t been a whole lot to say in the last couple of years, life sometimes gets too busy to sit down and write down the joys and the frustrations that a season brings and last year was one of frustration.

Regardless of the results, life always feels good when the Melbourne Tigers are part of Basketball, it is one of those constants in life that is always needed.

It is good that YouTube can be turned on and see how things are going, it is not traditional TV, but it does the job as you can watch it on a TV and the quality is pretty good and the commentators are informative.

It is hard to know if the Tigers will do well this year, the Womens team have brought in experience this year after having a largely youthful team last year which wasn’t a bad idea, you got to get the kilometres into players and giving youth players a run in the NBL1 competition gives the Big V competition that extra bit of oomph and moves development along.

The Men could do well this year, when they get going, they are a great team but when their shooting goes cold the opposition makes the Tigers pay every time hence why last year a frustrating year (thanks Channel Ten) of basketball.

They say Saturday nights all right for fighting well Saturday night will be all right for basketball.