Former Opals coach Tom Maher believes Adelaide counterpart Peter Buckle should be the next holder of the national post after overseeing the Lightning’s astonishing transformation into WNBL favourites.
Adelaide (18-3), clinched the minor premiership with a 71-58 home win over second-placed Bulleen (15-6), who they will host in the major semi-final on February 25.
Dandenong (13-8) consolidated third spot with a thumping 101-53 home win over West Coast (2-19).
With a 13-9 record looking like the mark to guarantee a top-five spot, Bendigo (11-10) probably blew their chance with a 72-70 home loss to Sydney (12-9) that dropped them two places to seventh and pushed the Flames into the five.
Sixth-placed Logan (11-9) still have a slim chance of making the finals following an 83-60 home win over AIS (2-20), who also lost 90-77 to Canberra (9-12).
The recruitment of Buckle and some top-class talent, including Suzy Batkovic and Abby Bishop, who tallied 24 points and 14 boards against Bulleen, have helped Adelaide rebound from last season’s disastrous 3-19 campaign.
Buckle is the assistant to current Opals coach Carrie Graf, who he also served under for three of Canberra’s WNBL title-winning teams and twice guided Townsville to the WNBL playoffs before joining Adelaide this season.
“They (Adelaide) have turned out better (than I thought) – the coach has just done brilliantly,” Bulleen coach Maher said of Buckle.
“When Carrie Graf has done her time, I’m thinking to myself ‘well, that (Buckle) is the next Australian coach’.”
The Lightning beat Bulleen despite Buckle deciding to rest star centre Batkovic, who returned against Bendigo last week after missing three games with a back complaint.
“After the Bendigo game, she pulled up pretty sore, so we just want to make sure heading into the finals she’ll be 100 per cent,” said Buckle, who expected Batkovic to play in Adelaide’s final-round fixture against Dandenong next week.
Maher’s roster has been ravaged by illness and injury and, while some of his players were clearly under the weather against Adelaide, he stressed his team had been outplayed.
“I left that game thinking they are deservedly at the moment the No.1 team in the country,” said Maher, who doesn’t expect to have star point guard Sam Richards back for next week’s final-round clash with Logan.
Bulleen rebounded with an 81-56 home win over West Coast the following night.
“If you had have seen them at Adelaide Airport, they looked like they were all off to hospital,” Maher said of his players.
“They were sleeping on the floor of the airport. They looked like they were the living dead in a horror movie.
“That was Saturday morning but, by Saturday evening, they had bounced back and had a look at themselves and responded appropriately.”
