Time to mature and put the positives into key areas for Wolves after Wildcats loss
The Oaklands Wolves bench celebrate a big three points gainst Nottingham Wildcats in the WBBL during their special blackout night. Picture: LELLO AMETRANO - Credit: Archant
Lee Ryan has called for a reaction and a maturity after Oaklands Wolves fell to a 76-61 defeat at home to Nottingham Wildcats in the WBBL.
The Oaklands Wolves bench celebrate a big three points gainst Nottingham Wildcats in the WBBL during their special blackout night. Picture: LELLO AMETRANO - Credit: Archant
The young side have found themselves in the middle of a poor run of form, with this loss at the Oaklands Sportszone the eighth straight reverse.
And although there were moments when the big crowd, decked in black as part of a special blackout night, rose to their feet in noisy acclaim of their team, they were too little and too infrequent.
But the head coach believes that if they can learn when and where to channel those good bits, they can snap their unwanted sequence.
He said: "The positives you can take from it was we played with energy and those mistakes are under our control.
Oaklands Wolves head coach Lee Ryan. Picture: LELLO AMETRANO - Credit: Archant
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"We can prevent teams from having second-chance points and we can take better care of the ball and work to get better shots.
"We go into practice this week knowing we competed and were in a position to be in the game but we have work to do on the little details.
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"The key thing to learn is that it isn't how hard you run around. The first thing we all want as coaches is energy but at this level, if you put that energy into the wrong areas then you get punished just as much as you don't give energy to start with.
"Now we have to mature a little bit, we have to grow individually and as a team, but we have to realise that while the energy is what we want, we have to put it into the areas for us to be successful."
Anneke Schlueter in action for Oaklands Wolves against Nottingham Wildcats in the WBBL. Picture: LELLO AMETRANO - Credit: Archant
The match itself saw Wolves in touch at the end of the first quarter before Nottingham eased clear.
But it wasn't the fact that the Wildcats were able to do that annoyed Ryan, rather Oaklands allowed them to even when they knew it was coming.
He said: "If they had out-executed us or were too good for us and stopped us running our stuff then I would say fair enough.
"But to give up as many second-chance points from rebounds as we did and to give the perimeter players time to shoot was disappointing, especially as we'd scouted that and worked on it all week.
Lauren Milligan in action for Oaklands Wolves against Nottingham Wildcats in the WBBL. Picture: LELLO AMETRANO - Credit: Archant
"The team gave me effort which was great, they put in a lot and we invested a lot but the next thing to do is get that effort into the key areas.
"In defence we have to take away their key players, we can't get beat by that. We have to get beat by something else.
"On the offensive end, if we can't run and shoot then we have to decide what's next?
"We still have lot of growth to do."
