Zero from three, but Sharks 'get money's worth'
“We were all just thrown together and for me, it was just a tough initiation week and more of a boot camp than anything else.”
Have you signed up to receive all The Southland Tribune digital publications direct to your inbox yet? You can do so below.
If you’re an easily panicked Southland Sharks fan you might be best not to overthink the team’s trip to the West Coast.
The Sharks joined eight other teams in a pre-season blitz tournament played in Greymouth and Westport.
Over four days - Tuesday to Friday - Southland played three games, losing all three to new team Whai (86-78), Manawatu Jets (78-71), and Canterbury Rams (84-81).
Two of the losses - Whai and Rams - were decided in overtime.
The Sharks had its full playing contingent on hand, apart from Brayden Inger, while other teams at the blitz were missing their imports.
While Sharks coach Guy Molloy would have liked to pick up a win, he said the reality was the preseason blitz for him wasn’t about the results.
He shared the playing minutes throughout the squad, and Molloy added they had only had a couple of training sessions under his watch before the trip to the West Coast.
“Obviously we went down in all three games, of which two of them were in overtime so we got our money’s worth in court time,” Molloy said.
“We were all just thrown together and for me, it was just a tough initiation week and more of a boot camp than anything else.”
“We rotated a lot of bodies so I wouldn’t say the chief goal in those games was to win at all costs… With five new players in the team coming from a whole bunch of different leagues and habits it was just more of an opportunity for me to look at the pieces and how I might be able to fit them together.”
One of those new Sharks players was LeGerald Vick. The American import has big wraps on him as he joins the New Zealand league for the first time.
Although he was relatively quiet - stats-wise at least - through those three games at the preseason blitz.
Vick put up two points against the Whai, 16 against Manawatu, and five against Canterbury.
Again Molloy wasn’t concerned.
Molloy felt Vick was eager to play for the team and not be a player that came in and just tried to put up a lot of shots to try to fill the personal stats sheet.
If anything, Molloy said he overplayed that hand, and that meant Vick wasn’t as aggressive as he could have been.
“In some respects, you look at that and applaud the guy’s willingness to try and figure out what the team is doing first.
“Having said that, there were a few glimpses of a play here or there where he got out on a break, or off on a cut or drive, and I thought, ‘gee, that’s a high level of athleticism and skill.”
The Sharks have another important training week ahead of them this week heading into its final preseason hit out.
Southland will host the Otago Nuggets at ILT Stadium Southland on Sunday.
The two teams will then meet again in round one of the Sal’s National Basketball League in Dunedin on Saturday, March 30.