TERANG Tornadoes are striving to build confidence in the final round of the Country Basketball League’s regular season before their long-awaited return to finals.
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The Tornadoes are set to host second-ranked Horsham Hornets – whom they could cross paths with again a week later in the semi-finals, depending on results – at Terang Stadium on Saturday night.
Knowing their spot in finals is assured for the first time since the inaugural CBL season in 2011/12, Tornadoes leading scorer Justin Wallace said a final boost of confidence would aid their chances.
“We want to try to play well this weekend and get the most out of the game, try to get all the positives out of the game,” he said.
“(It’ll be good) just going into the first final being positing and knowing we can match it with whoever we’re going to play.”
The Hornets defeated the Tornadoes by just six points when they met back in round one, but that Terang side was missing two of its three top points-getters in Wallace (211 points) and coach Dean Brebner (199).
If the Tornadoes secure a victory at home on Saturday night, it will mean they have split the ledger with all three of their fellow finalists.
“We beat Mount Gambier once and they beat us once. We beat Corio Bay once and they beat us once,” Wallace said.
“If we beat them (Horsham) as well, we’ll have a bit of confidence … no matter who we play.”
After missing out on finals the past three seasons, the Tornadoes have tightened up their defence and found additional avenues to the basket – with the full-time addition of Brebner certainly helping – in their emergence as a contender for the CBL championship.
They have conceded 69 points a game on average this summer – nearly 10 points a game better than last season – and increased their scoring capacity to 73 points a game, bettering their previous effort by eight points a game.
“Defensively, we’ve been pretty good,” Wallace said.
“The other teams are not scoring much against us. We haven’t been really good in that in the past. Our offense has been really good as well.”
Warrnambool Seahawks and Mermaids finished their seasons last weekend, with byes scheduled for the final round.
We always set a goal to play finals at the start of the season, so we've ticked one box there.
- Justin Wallace