The Castec Rural Pioneers will take the court against Geelong United for the second time this season and will be looking for a repeat performance of the last time the two met.


The Pioneers are currently second on the ladder in the NBL1 South Conference with a 9-3 record.


Geelong have struggled a bit this season as they sit 16th with a 4-8 record.


Last time these two teams faced each other the Pioneers got the job done in Geelong, defeating United 93-81.


This season the Pioneers have struggled at home with all their defeats coming at Wulanda and it will be interesting to see how they respond after last Friday night’s heartbreaking defeat to Eltham.


Although Geelong is positioned toward the lower end of the ladder, they still have some top players who have been playing well this season.


Latrell Jones has been a big scorer for the Victorians, averaging 19.58 PPG this season.


Another big contributor for Geelong has been George Blagojevic who is averaging 17.89 PPG and is also leading the team in rebounds with 7.78 per game.


Tomorrow night Mount Gambier will have to shoot the ball a whole lot better than what they have been doing.


Last week they shot 24% from three balls and in the previous game they shot 25%.


It’s a simple outlook, they cannot afford to continue to shoot like that if they want to win this match up.


Head coach Richard Hill said his side was looking forward to hosting Geelong tomorrow night.


“It was a really good game last time we played them, they are a decent team even though they are low on the ladder which is pretty standard for every team at the moment,” he said.


“I’m confident that if we play well we should win but we do not want to have a bad shooting night because they are going to be good enough to beat us.”


Hill outlined key areas that his side needs to improve on from last game heading into tomorrow night’s match.


“I thought we were pretty good last game because Eltham are a pretty good side but we just did not close the game out,” he said.


“We did not shoot the ball very well but sometimes you have a good shooting night and sometimes you do not, we also want to shoot well because if you shoot well then you are usually going to win.


“So shooting is really the main key issue for us because we have been defending quite well, running out stuff well, playing unselfishly and it just comes down to making our shots and to continue to defend like we have been.”