Mersey Tigers captain David Aliu tells us about his recent injury problems and the players that have stood out for him in the BBL this season in his latest column for BBLFans.
We’ll start with the good news – my rehab from injury is looking positive and I hope to be back soon. I’ve been missing for a few weeks with a fractured ankle, but with the help of the great sports therapists we have at the Tigers, I’m hoping to be back in the next week or two.
It has been a really frustrating time for me missing some important games when we are trying to put together a play-off run.
The 82-77 win on Sunday at Guildford was huge, and I’m proud of the guys’ effort and determination. Hopefully that’s the start of a run where we can pick up a few wins. I think we’re really coming together as a team now, and we have to make sure we keep pushing each other every day.
Last season we picked up three of the four trophies on offer, and it looks like Newcastle could match or even better that this season. They are such a tough team to play against, and they have strength in every position. We saw that in the BBL Cup Final, and we play their opponents that day, Plymouth, in our league match on Friday.
Newcastle have all the pieces to do a clean sweep of trophies this season, but there are a few teams coming in to form down the stretch, who will it make tough for them.
There have been a lot of great players this season – but the stand out players thus far to me are Tommy Freeman at Worcester, and Charles Smith and Joe Chapman at Newcastle Eagles.
Freeman’s 40 points last weekend was even better than Smith’s showing in the BBL Cup Final, and he has been a great performer this year.
Aliu is our exclusive BBL player columnist for 2011/12 and he has been racking up all sorts of club records at Mersey this season. He can add another one soon – he lies six behind Olu Babalola’s club record of 581 field goals attempted. Earlier in the season, Aliu became the first Mersey player ever to score more than 1000 points for the club in the BBL.
