Deloitte Dominates Men's Basketball at the Melbourne Corporate Games
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In what can only be described as a near perfect blitz on the corporate games, the Deloitte Men’s basketball team (Ring Raiders) finished FIRST… higher than 102 other teams (from 26 pools) in the annual men’s Corporate Games Basketball Tournament.
Having never before finished higher than 7th (2006), the Deloitte boys knew we had a huge mountain (of ex and current NBL players, ABA players and representative teams) to climb.
Winning our first three pool games on day one served as a warm-up for a trying 4 game Sunday, including playing our last three games back-to-back-to-back. En-route to our Grand Final Victory, we encountered the following teams, and posted the following scores:
Having never before finished higher than 7th (2006), the Deloitte boys knew we had a huge mountain (of ex and current NBL players, ABA players and representative teams) to climb.
Winning our first three pool games on day one served as a warm-up for a trying 4 game Sunday, including playing our last three games back-to-back-to-back. En-route to our Grand Final Victory, we encountered the following teams, and posted the following scores:
Pool Match 1 NAB Custodians Win 54 – 15
Pool Match 2 ANZ Trotters Win 44 – 6
Pool Match 3 KPMG Blues Win 50 – 8
Finishing our pool on top, and making it into the finals (consisting of 26 teams) seeded 2nd overall, our Sunday schedule (which was sudden death knockout) was as follows:
Round of 16 CityPower / Powercor Win 45 – 20
Quarter finals ANZ Falcons Win 39 – 11
Semi Finals TFG Financial Solutions (winners 2005, 2007) Win 37 – 32
Grand Final Rowben Consulting Win 60 – 34
The grind of playing 7 games in less than 24 hours proved tough, however with a squad of eight players and quick rotation and re-hydration, we, the Deloitte boys were able to reach the pinnacle of Australian Corporate Basketball, raising many eyebrows (from spectators, referees and opposing players) in the process.
Many thanks go out to our support crew who braved the torrid Melbourne weather to come along to the venue and cheer us on throughout. A special thanks must also go to Brent Hobba for being there as mentor and team leader throughout the duration of the tournament, despite being sidelined with injury. We know it was hard to sit and just watch, and we appreciate your effort and commitment.
Finally, a huge thank you to Deloitte for sponsoring us (uniforms and registration) and finally, to the squad who made this happen. The squad only came together an hour before our first game on Saturday afternoon, and immediately made an on-court impact. From the get-go we played inspiring basketball and are proud to put Deloitte up there on the basketball pedestal!
Squad members: #10 Jeremy Kirtley (DGS), Brent Hobba (Tax), #15 Michael Power (Forensic), #4 Matthew Hadjitelemachou (Risk Services), #7 Liam Ryan (ex-Forensic), #5 Bobby Adeoba (graduate in waiting), #12 Mitch Chapman (associate – Frankston SEABL), #8 Dwayne Campbell (associate – Dandenong ABA), #9 Matthew Witherden (associate – Dandenong ABA)
Support crew: Alison Bonnici, Erik Kronborg, Mia Kronborg, Cara Hitt, Anita Best, Quoc Vo, Adam Matthews, Jono Lyngcoln, Benoy Shankar, Ed Holbrook, Benny Williams
