Half centuries are normally reserved for cricket but on Saturday Orange’s Matt Gray brought one to the basketball court.
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Despite sitting out for over a quarter’s worth of action the Bathurst Goldminers centre dropped 50 in his side’s gigantic 125-62 away win over the Central Coast Waves.
The Goldminers’ opening quarter was a relentless barrage of scoring.
The visitors blew out to a 32-2 lead with three minutes still remaining before the first break.
The Goldminers’ massive advantage allowed them to utilise their full rotation from an early stage. Five Bathurst players ended up in double digits.
“All our bench players got a lot of playing time. We were able to play the type of basketball we wanted and the score indicated that,” Goldminers coach Andrew Osborn said.
“We were able to play our running game and no matter what defence they put on us we were able to break through that and score easily.
“There were some passages of play which were brilliant. At times the ball didn’t even touch the floor. We played a great team game where we were able to get everyone involved.”
Goldminers held a 64-30 lead at half-time but didn’t loosen their offensive pressure when returning to the court.
The Bathurst men scored 20 of the next 23 points to give themselves even more breathing room.
“We did have a couple of defensive lapses where the team was thinking ‘we’ve got this won already’ and felt they didn’t have to work as hard. I put a quick stop to that,” Osborn said.
“Our goal this game was to score 120 points and keep them under 60 points. We got very close to that.”
Goldminers have their first back-to-back home games, starting next Saturday.
Their match against the Hornsby Spiders will be followed by their second meeting of the year with the Moss Vale Magic.