NBL1 Recap 14, 15 & 16 July

The NBL1 Central regular season wrapped up with big time milestones and performances in the West Adelaide Bearcats 81-105 win over the winless Southern Tigers at the Cage.

Hawks own Lachlan Olbrich notched up a game high 30 points, 11 rebounds and three assists cashing in on six triples showing his long range.

The Bearcats finish first on the NBL1 Central ladder with 15 wins and 3 losses and will have the weekend off as the quarter finals get underway.

The NBL1 South regular season also wrapped up with Mason Peatling’s Knox Raiders winning in back-to-back matches.

Coming into the last weekend of the regular season and all the Raiders needed to do was win one of their final two matches to secure the regular season championship.

That started on Saturday night on the road to Kilsyth, and the Raiders just managed to hold on for the 87-86 victory. Mason Peatling added six points, 15 boards, three assists and three steals.

The Raiders came into their game on Sunday having already secured the regular season championship and went on to beat the Bendigo Braves 96-59. Peatling this time adding 10 points, four rebounds and 1 assist.

The Knox Raiders will head into the NBL1 South playoffs on a 10-game winning streak and will face the fourth placed Sandringham Sabres in the quarter finals on Saturday July 22, tipping off at 8pm.

Gold Coast Rollers came into its last game of the regular season in NBL1 North on the back of a 15-game winning streak and just needed to win to guarantee top spot, but Logan had the chance to snatch it with two wins this weekend.

It turned out to be quite the contest between the NBL1 North's top two teams with both teams having their turn of the lead, but the Rollers secured the win in dramatic fashion 90-88.

Todd Blanchfield finished with 26 points, 14 rebounds and three assists for Gold Coast.

The Rollers will come up against Rip City in the quarter finals on Saturday July 22, tipping off at 7pm.

There was just one venue in action in Sunday's NBL1 East action to conclude the Round 17 of the 2023 season with the Sydney Comets beating the Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Spiders 84-72.

Wani Swaka Lo Buluk contributing 11 points and three steals.

The victory for the Comets improves them to a 10-10 record on the season with two games to go in the last round. First up against the Centre of Excellence at home on Saturday 22 July at 7:30pm and then away to Norths Bears on Sunday 23 July at 1:30pm. Finals are out of reach for the Comets even with two wins against the top four teams.

All the Illawarra Hawks could do is beat the Central Coast Crusaders on Saturday night and hope other results would go their way to stay alive this season and they took care of their side of it with the 100-72 win.

The victory improves Illawarra to an 11-10 record but to still stay alive they also needed Newcastle to lose which didn’t happen.

Tim Coenraad was back into the Hawks line-up and delivered 24 points, three rebounds and two steals on 4/8 three-point shooting.

Davo Hickey was the star of the night producing a triple-double made up of 15 points, 16 assists, 10 rebounds and two steals on 7/10 shooting from the field.

The Illawarra Hawks are back home at The Snakepit on Sunday 23 July against the Canberra Gunners, tipping off at 1pm.