As his team go up against a Guildford Heat outfit that are 2-0 at the Echo Arena in Liverpool this weekend, Everton Tigers Coach Tony Garbelotto is delighted with new point guard Kevin Bell, who led the Tigers with 23 points in their narrow loss to Jelson Homes DMU Leicester Riders last weekend. He said: 'Kevin is a next level player and I do not think he will have any problems integrating himself into our team. He is quick, can score and is a very good defender, all of the things we have wanted in our point guard.'
Looking forward to his side's game against the Heat, Garbelotto feels that they have several players that can hurt any team in the league. He added: 'They have experience in Chad (McKnight), Mike Martin and Julius Joseph. (Kenny) Langhorne seems to be a good pick up who can score. Guildford are a team with a great tradition in our league and even though they may not challenge the top like in years past, they are still a team who can produce strong performances.'
The Cheshire Jets and Airwaves Plymouth Raiders also face off on Sunday, and whilst Plymouth have returned only Captain Allister Gall and forward James Noel, the Jets have bought back several veterans from last year's squad. Their Head Coach Paul Smith commented: 'I don't know much about Plymouth at this stage' he said 'They have a new team which had a tough loss on the opening weekend, but they have had a while to work on that and put things right, so we are expecting a very tough game this weekend.'
The Worthing Thunder had an up-and down weekend last weekend, but they managed to bounce back from an 84-78 defeat by the Sheffield Sharks on Friday evening, to snatch an exciting 93-91 win against the Glasgow Rocks twenty four hours later.
For new Thunder coach Dave Titmuss, the statistics of the game against the Rocks spoke for themselves. He explained: '"On Saturday our mental toughness, some timely offensive rebounding, and Reggie Bratton's shooting touch just got us past Glasgow. I think the Rocks are a terrific team with talent and experience and they really know how to play together; they're going to win a lot of games this year. But in the first half we allowed them to shoot 50 percent from three-point range and nearly 70 per cent from inside the arc. In the third and fourth periods our guys did an excellent job of adjusting and changing the quality and quantity of the looks they got. Having given up 57 points before the break, we held them to 34 points for the rest of the game and that included one from 10 shooting from behind the arc.'
Source: www.bbl.org.uk
