Tara Murray
Keilor Thunder has already matched its winning total of the past two seasons in the National Basketball League 1 South competition, but that’s only the start.
The Thunder won eight matches in each of its first two seasons in the competition, but only needed eight rounds to achieve that mark.
Coach Liam Glascott said they were hoping this was only the beginning of what they can achieve this season.
“We’ve hit that mark, but we’re confident of building on that,” he said. “The last few rounds we haven’t been scoring and the shots haven’t been dropping.
“We got a couple of close ones. Last week we found some good defence after being down by 12 at quarter time and then walked away with a win.
“Against Hobart we were able to come away with a win too after trailing.
Glascott said the arrival of Deng Acuoth made a huge difference for the group defensively. Against Kilsyth, he had 12 rebounds to go with his 18 points.
While the Thunder has been getting more wins on the board, it has lacked consistency from week to week at times.
Only twice has it won more than one game in a row, including one three game winning run.
Glascott said it has been a work in progress to get their whole team on the court.
“We’re still coming together,” he said. “We’ve had guys come in late and there’s been some injuries.
“We almost had a whole roster against Hobart and Nunawading,” he said.
“We had guys who had come off planes after 35 hour flights and we’d only had Deng for a couple of sessions.
“The more the group keeps training together, the better we can be.”
Glascott said the draw also plays into the teams favour the next few weeks. The side only has single games per weekend for the next five weekends.
“Having singles the next five weeks in a row will help us a lot,” he said.
“We’ll have more bodies on the court this week at practice and keeping building out there a group
“We’ll train like normal, but it will allow us to nurture some bodies through, with some guys carrying little niggles.”
The Thunder were set to be in action on Saturday night against the Melbourne Tigers on Friday night.
Glascott said before the match it was an important match for the side.
“They sit below us at 6-6 at the moment,” he said. “There’s a big cluster of teams on 6-6, 7-6 and we’re on 8-5 in seventh.
“We can’t allow them to keep coming. Hopefully we can keep going and get the win and go 9-5.”
He got his wish with the Thunder winning, 82-69.
The top of the table women’s side also faced the Tigers, after deadline.
The Thunder won 77-70.
It was without coach Kristi Harrower and star guard Maddy Rocci, who were on Australian Opals duty,
The pair are expected to be back this weekend as round nine continues with both Thunder sides facing the Mt Gambier Pioneers on Friday night.
