THE Rockingham Flames women remain the SBL's only unbeaten team in 2014 and now look to continue their winning run going up against the defending champion Joondalup and last year's minor premiers Willetton this weekend.

The Orange Autos Rockingham Flames have won their opening nine games of the SBL season against the Redbacks, Tigers, Magic, Wolves, Slammers, Cougars, Eastern Suns, Slammers and the Lightning by an average of over 25 points.

The Flames had the bye last weekend coming off an impressive 15-point win over the previously unbeaten Lakeside and now this weekend take on the Joondalup Wolves on Friday night at Mike Barnett Sports Complex and then the Willetton Tigers on Sunday at Willetton Basketball Stadium.

However, coach Ryan Petrik is certainly not getting ahead of himself and isn’t letting his players do so either fully aware that no championship has ever been won in the first nine games of a season.

"We have had a lot of success obviously so far this season and our winning margins have been pretty good so we have been able to give our bench a good run so far," Petrik said.

"It's obviously a really good feeling around the club. From a women's point of view, we don’t care what is happening now. August is the only month that matters. We saw Willetton finish last year on 16-6 to get the No. 1 seed but then get swept out in the first round. Nothing matters until August."

The Flames made the grand final in 2012 before losing to the South West Slammers and then lost in the semi finals last year to the eventual champion Wolves, but one area Petrik feels has improved this season has been their defensive efforts.

Scoring continues to be Rockingham's strength with Sam Whitcomb averaging 21.7 points, Darcee Garbin 14.6, Jacinta Bourne 12.2 and Kaye Tucker 11.3, but the defence has improved largely because of the efforts of Tarsha Fletcher.

"Everyone knows that we can score and that we don't have the elite defenders like a Wanneroo do, but Fletcher is the one girl we've got in our top eight or nine who thinks defence first," he said.

"We desperately need that. We've got four girls in our starters who can all go for 25 any time they feel like it, whereas Fletcher can lock down elite wings every week for us."

Another player who Petrik is pleased with this season is Jacinta Bourne.

All her numbers are up with her scoring 12.2 points and averaging 5.4 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 2.1 steals a game, but most impressively her three-point shooting is up over 40 per cent.

"Jacinta has shot a lot of threes off the dribble the last few years and I've always said to her that I reckon she shoots about 10 per cent off the dribble, but her catch and shoot is closer to 40 or 50," he said.

"Nowadays she is getting 95 per cent of her shots without the dribble. For whatever reason this year it has just clicked. We have moved her off the ball a bit more and with Whitcomb playing a bit more point guard she is getting wide open looks."

Whitcomb is leading the way for the Flames continuing to perhaps be the most dominant player in the women's SBL, but what is impressing Petrik the most is the help that Rockingham now has surrounding her.

"She is quality obviously and her box score numbers are pretty similar to last year in less minutes. Obviously having Garbin in the starting five now instead Telfer who wasn’t the offensive threat that Garbin is," Petrik said.

"We've put Whitcomb in on-balls with Garbin and I'm not sure how you are meant to defend that if you are the opposition. She has a really high basketball IQ and she is actually hard to coach in the sense that there are three or four ways you could use her.

"You could use her exclusively as a point guard but that probably isn’t her real spot, you can use her off the ball as a flat out scorer, you could use her running around screens like Reggie Miller or you could use her in the post. You have to pick one of those."

Article by Chris Pike