After two weeks of back-to-back defeats, the Bankstown Bruins men’s team bounced back in style and took down the Central Coast Crusaders 93-76 at Bankstown Basketball Stadium on April 27 in front of a packed crowd. Hayden Blankley opened the scoring for the Bruins, scoring a three-point jump shot before the Crusaders gained momentum with a two-point layup shot by Luke Cassidy.
Both Andre Wolford and Jason Cadee delivered a good first-half performance, but for the Crusaders they kept missing opportunities to shoot. In the first quarter, the Bruins produced a turnover but defended and managed to get the ball back, with Charlie McBeath scoring. The first quarter ended with the Bruins taking a four-point lead, 24-20.
The second quarter kicked off with Klarius Amir missing a two-point jump shot, but Jayden Evic scoring a two-point layup shot for the Bruins. The Crusaders managed to narrow the Bruins’ lead with a two-point jump shot made by Seth Chapman, a free throw shot by Solomon Kuol and IIisia Washington scoring a three-point jump shot. Crusaders managed to even the score line to 29-29 off the back of Solomon Kuoi scoring a three-point jump shot.
Thomas Daus shot a three-point jump shot to give the lead back to the Bruins. Crusaders were able to close down the Bruins’ lead off the back of free throw shots by Garric Young and Luke Cassidy, stealing the Bruin lead with a three-point jump shot, making the score 34-32.
Hayden Blankley’s free shots narrowed the Crusaders lead but they had a late second-quarter surge scoring, multiple shots before Gum Majak scored a two – point layup and Hayden Blankley helped the Bruins get closer to taking the lead.
On the edge of halftime, both teams missed multiple shots but also managed to score some shots, with Garric Young scoring a two-point layup to extend the Crusaders lead. Thomas Buvac scored a three-point jump shot for the Bruins, as well as Klarius Amir scoring a three-pointer heading into halftime. Furthermore Crusaders took a 48-44 lead into halftime.
The third quarter began with the Bruins scoring first, with Hayden Blankley scoring a two-point driving layup shot but also with both teams missing shots and turnovers made by both teams. Ilisia Washington scored a three-point jump shot, further helping extend the Crusaders lead before Andre Wolford for the Bruins scored a three-point jump shot for the Bruins followed by a two point slam dunk, sending the passionate home crowd wild.
Furthermore, the third quarter saw missed opportunities to score as well as poor discipline by the Bruins, leading to the Crusaders further extending their lead. Ilisia Washington had a solid third quarter, scoring multiple free throw shots on the edge of three-quarter time. Jason Cadee also had a solid third quarter, scoring multiple three-point jump shots, helping close the Crusaders lead. Despite the Bruins having a late blitz, the Crusaders still took the lead into three quarter time 69-66.
Charlie McBeath lit up the court scoring a two-point dunk shot to get the Bruins off to a strong start in the fourth quarter with the Crusaders unsuccessful with their first shot attempted of the last quarter, with Klarius Amir missing a two-point layup shot. The Crusaders made a costly mistake, with a turnover early in the last quarter gifting the Bruins with a three-point jump shot by Charlie McBeath giving the Bruins the lead.
The Bruins defence turned up a notch, blocking many shots attempted by the Crusaders. Jason Cadee was on fire in the last quarter, providing his team with many assists and scoring multiple shots, including drilling another three-point jump shot. The Crusaders, after leading for majority of the match, still had chances to take the lead and potentially win, but kept missing and were defensively poor. Additionally, former Adelaide 36er Jason Cadee won the Anzac Round Medal.
CEO of the Bankstown Bruins Christian Gobolos was pleased with both the men’s and women’s teams winning after a couple of losses in the past weeks. “To give both the men and women a lot of credit, they really played as a team together. I think that was probably lacking in the last couple of games where they’ve taken a loss, where they’ve probably been more looking at individuals rather than working as a team. But through tonight both teams played for each other and they ground out a win,” Gobolos emphasised.
Gobolos credited the men’s teams defence in shutting down Central Coast Crusaders and said the way they played in the second half to get the win was amazing. Post game Gobolos spoke on Josh Cadee’s best qualities and said its his element of leadership.
“Jason has done it at the NBA level for so many years. Represented Australia, represented multiple NBL teams. The fact that he comes to here to the Bruins and has that element of leadership provides guidance for those younger players to sort of follow in his footsteps and he can show them how to play great basketball but also play Bruins basketball the same time,” Gobolos highlighted.
There is good news for Bruins fans as three-time Sydney Kings NBL champion Jaylin Galloway is back from injury and will play in next week’s Bruins game. “So the idea is that he’ll be available to play for us next weekend and we’re very excited to see that and obviously we have our home game here on the 10th so we expect obviously a huge crowd to that one,” Gobolos said. The Bruins travel up to Manly to face the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles on Saturday May 3 with the women playing at 3 pm while the men battle it out at 5 pm.
