ALAN Black admits that the Willetton Tigers men finished about where he expected at the end of the regular season in his first campaign as head coach but he now is confident of being a chance to knock off the South West Slammers in the quarter finals despite being the lower-ranked team.

Black took over as coach of the Tigers for 2015 with them spending three years out of the playoffs and he was able to recruit some handy players to Willetton including Damien Scott, Kyle Armour, Corey Easley and Ephrem Davis.

The result was the Tigers winning eight of their first 10 games and while there was a patch of indifferent form through the mid part of the season, they finished off well to win their last two against playoff-bound teams to lock away sixth position with a 14-12 record.

That sets up Willetton to play the South West Slammers in a quarter-final match up starting on Saturday night at Willetton Basketball Stadium.

While Black still feels as though the Tigers can shoot the ball better, he is happy with how they are entering the playoffs against an unpredictable Slammers team.

Black feels as though Willetton's defence is doing well as evidenced by holding the Slammers to just 65 points two weeks ago at Eaton Recreation Centre, while the offence is clicking better also scoring an average of 97.4 points over the last five games.

"Willetton Men have had an interesting season coming out of the blocks like a house on fire and then suffering a mid-year slump to finish 14-12 which is about where we expected to finish after the first month died down," Black said.

"The team is coming together nicely with a good balance of scoring and a game based on playing solid defence and protecting the paint. We probably haven’t shot the ball as well as I would have thought but lately our offence has been looking a lot better."

The Slammers have had an interrupted run into the playoffs since the announcement that playing-coach Ty Harrelson would be departing and injuries to Clive Weeden, Trent Worthington and Aaron Edwards.

Despite that, Black is fully aware that they will be hard to beat for his Tigers particularly with home-court advantage after Saturday night's quarter-final Game 1 at Willetton.

"The Slammers will be a fascinating match up with a number of things conspiring to bring them off the boil to where they were in June," Black said.

"Injuries and travel have played a significant role in the last month and although they are still very talented and play hard we believe that we have a chance of progressing that may not have been there previously."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Grant Lauterbach