The Castec Rural Pioneers will host the Casey Cavaliers tomorrow night in the NBL1 South 2025 season home opener at Wulanda Recreation and Convention Centre.
Friday night’s game will be a special as the club celebrates captain Kane de Wit’s 200th match for the club.
The Pioneers started the season on the right foot last weekend with back to back wins against Geelong and Keilor with the side scoring 100 points in both contests.
Mount Gambier will be going up against the Cavaliers who only played one game last week and had a solid win, beating the Dandenong Rangers by seven points.
Casey looked solid in that game and will definitely be a good challenge for the Pioneers.
The Cavs have got a few players who may cause some problems for Mount Gambier tomorrow night with Hunter Marks and Nate Roberts coming off 12 point games while Trendon Hankerson and Tyler Robertson both led the side with 21 points.
Hankerson will be someone Mount Gambier will have to keep an eye on as he is a threat from deep, hitting three threes last game with 50% shooting, having also proven accurate last season, knocking down 41 triples for Nunawading.
Last week the entire Mount Gambier roster proved reliable, with everyone stepping up and playing their role.
My MVP from last weekend was import Joe Palmer who had back to back great games with double doubles in both.
He will definitely be a fan favourite at Wulanda tomorrow night and will give the crowd a great show.
Another player set for a big game tomorrow night will be Austin Shelley.
Last weekend Shelley looked to have stepped up a level from last year, something he has done each season with the Pioneers.
Across both games Shelley was effective at both ends as he helped with both scoring and in defence with three steals in each game.
Shelley’s shots also looked good, knocking down nine threes across the weekend, ensuring he will be set to light up Wulanda.
Pioneers head coach Richard Hill thinks tomorrow night’s game will be a challenging one for his side with Casey looking like they have a good squad.
“They look to have a pretty good line up, they had a good win last weekend,” he said.
“They are big and pretty talented but they are new with their whole group being pretty new together.
“I think they will be one of the best teams and well coached.
“It’s going to be a tough game, I have looked at some film and they look to be a pretty dangerous unit, so we need to be prepared which we will be and we need to re-establish home court which was not very good last year.”
Hill hopes to have another game with everyone on the team contributing on the floor and doing their job.
“We like to share the load and the team is morphing into the way I would like it to be with great contributions across the board, everyone is contributing,” he said.
“I think we had five or six guys in double figures each game last weekend, that’s our goal.
“It’s going to be interesting because they have size and athleticism that might be unmatched in the competition and we have got size and athleticism too, although they have got more so it will be interesting to see how that shakes out.”
