Altona Gators are counting the cost of a nightmarish home opener in the Big V basketball men’s division 1.
Not only did the Gators surrender 91-82 to Mildura Heat at the Altona Sports Centre on Sunday, but they’ve lost big man Daniel Borbajo for an extended period after he broke his wrist dunking in the pre-game shoot- around. Borbajo faces up to 12 weeks on the sidelines.
PICTURE GALLERY: To come
“We’re not the biggest team and he’s probably our tallest and most athletic player,” Gators coach Des Radoslovic lamented.
“He swung on the ring a little bit and came off and landed on his hand and it just popped it out sideways.”
The Gators put a lot of work into nullifying Heat import Calvin Henry, only to get burnt by their other import, Reggie Fuller.
Fuller lit it up in the first quarter to have the Gators on the back foot from the outset and finished with a massive 36 points and 19 rebounds. Henry was no slouch either with 29 points and 12 boards.
Once the Gators adjusted their defence to slow down the two-headed beast, they began to make inroads on a hefty deficit that stood at 19 at one stage in the second term.
“We put a lot of emphasis on Calvin Henry, their star import, I suppose, but their second import, Reggie Fuller, had 15 points on us in the first quarter,” Radoslovic said.
“We didn’t stick to our specific plan to stop their team so we got ourselves into a bit of a hole.
“We switched our defence up in the second half and we did counter them and got it back to within two points.”
One hoop away from restoring parity, the Gators imploded to give up six points in the last 10 seconds of the third quarter.
Dan Ellul committed a reach-in foul and compounded the situation by receiving a technical foul for back chat.
“We sort of shot ourselves in the foot,” Radoslovic said. “The referees are very hot on the reach-in fouls this season and one of our guards stole the ball, got called for a foul and turned around and pleaded with the ref and got given a tech.”
Isaac Deakin was impressive for the Gators in the fightback.
A raw 20-year-old from Brisbane studying at the Australian College of Basketball in Melbourne, Deakin filled the void left by Borbajo to finish with 18 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two steals.
“He was battling against their imports really well and had a decent game himself,” Radoslovic said.
“He’s got a bigger weight on his shoulders now with Borbajo going down for a lengthy period.”
Joey Mausar led the Gators scorers with 20 points. The Gators head to Warrnambool on Saturday night for the first of seven games on the road.
