Buccaneers look to bounce back at home in danger game against East Perth Eagles

The Geraldton Buccaneers will hope to bounce back on their home court this Saturday as they take on the East Perth Eagles after another away weekend of split results.

The Buccs saw their six-game winning streak come to an end at the hands of the Senators who only hit the lead with six seconds to go until full-time in a thriller. They sit third on the ladder, with 11 wins and four losses.

They had been up by as much as 13 points in the fourth quarter and also had a big lead in Saturday’s clash against the Eastern Suns though they managed to hold on to that game and win by seven.

Coach Dayle Joseph was disappointed with the lack of consistency at the weekend.

“I don’t think we played great over both games, we played good basketball in patches. but there (are) lapses along the way which have been happening a little bit across the season,” he said.

“We’ve been lucky enough to get away with it so far, but we pretty much handed over the win to the Senators with some lapses and our decision-making.”

One key area was from the line, with the Buccs giving away 31 points in free throws, as Joseph felt the team struggled to adapt to the pace of the game.

“I felt the game was over-refereed and made it very hard to play the game, whether the Senators sensed this and used it to slow the game down I’m not so sure,” he said.

“But it makes it really difficult for the referees to be consistent which causes some anxiety among your team and then you have a lack of concentration and other issues that happen from that.

“It was pretty much a good wake-up call for us to understand the games are different from week to week, and you have to be prepared to adjust and be disciplined in the way we play the game.”

On paper, the Buccs should be too strong for the Eagles who sit 12th on the ladder, but they have won their last two games against the Cougars and Senators and represent a potential banana peel for the Buccs.

“They’re one of those teams they’ve got some very talented players on that team but they’ve struggled to get them all on the court at the same time and then they haven’t been able to properly gel together as a team for a period of time,” Joseph said.

“So coming to the back end of the season, they’re probably going to be at their best they’re a very dangerous team for us to come up against.

“We’ll certainly be looking at . . . some of the things we needed to improve on from the weekend and previous weeks that we haven’t been great a. We had a pretty good hit out last night and reviewed a few things that cost us.”

The Buccs will tip off at 7pm on Saturday at Activewest Stadium.