Wanneroo coach Ben Ettridge says he is fully confident his extensive Australian Rollers commitments this season won't harm the Wolves' chances of winning another men's State Basketball League title.

Ettridge, also the coach of Australia's wheelchair basketball team, will lead the Rollers to the London Paralympics in the hope of defending their 2008 Gold Medal.

But the tournament is poorly timed from a MSBL point of view, as Ettridge will miss the second weekend of the semi finals and the Grand Final should Wanneroo make it that far.

Ettridge said though that he had total faith in his coaching support staff and experienced players to fill the void when he was gone, partly because of a similar experience in the 2011 quarter finals before they went on to win the championship.

"We're doing a lot of work with the boys to make sure that's just a minor hiccup. I've got 100% faith in what we're doing," he said.

"Assistant coach Luke Brennan and the leadership group are doing a great job and they'll get opportunities throughout the year to take control and manage games in preparation for that.

"[Brennan] is one of the most underrated coaches at the moment. He knows how to coach a game and once he gets more confident in his abilities, there'll be no dramas with him controlling the team.

"When you get to that stage of the season everything is pretty much in place anyway, it's just about your execution and discipline."

While Ettridge won't be there at the crunch part of the season, he said there is still a strong chance Perth Wildcats co-captain Brad Robbins joins the team late in the season.

Like Wolves skipper Greg Hire, Robbins is tied up with his Wildcats commitments for the next few weeks, but Ettridge said Wanneroo would love to have him after that.

"That's completely in Brad's court," Ettridge said.

"If he wants to enjoy some basketball at the end of the year we'd love to have him, but we're not pinning our season success on Brad or Greg.

"I've had a couple of chats with him. He's a little bit elusive, but that's Brad."

Although the defending champions overcame Hire's absence to beat Kalamunda and Cockburn in round one, Ettridge was far from satisfied and rated the performances only 'five out of 10'.

He said he was hoping for big improvement when they play Rockingham on Friday and Perth on Sunday.

"We were very patchy offensively and defensively. There were flashes of brilliance from individual players but, as a whole, we've got a long way to go," Ettridge said.

"Our guys need to switch out of pre-season mode, which they're in a little bit."

Article by Jacob Kagi
Photo by Helen Theoharakis (Hoop Shots)

Follow the SBL on Facebook