Basketball Sports

WBBL Game Preview: Nottingham Wildcats v Gloucester City Queens

Gloucester City Queens will hit the road again when they travel to the Nottingham Arena to play the Wildcats on Saturday evening in round nine of the WBBL Championship.

With both teams on four points in the league standings this is poised to be a close game. The Queens head into the game on the back of four straight losses in the WBBL, the latest one coming last Saturday against league leaders Sevenoaks Suns.

So how do both teams match up?

The Nottingham Wildcats got their second win of the season last weekend when they faced a struggling Caledonia Pride side claiming an 82-76 victory. As it’s the Queens’ debut season as a WBBL franchise results are understandably hit and miss. After winning their first two games, the last four have four score lines that haven’t been ideal, however they’ll be looking to make amends to that this weekend.

Ones to watch

With Queens captain and star player Maura Fitzpatrick being out with injury for the season, it will undoubtedly affect the roster. Fitzpatrick is still leading the pack averaging 19.5 points per game, whilst also being up there as one of the Queens top rebounders averaging 6.8 and achieving 2.5 assists.

Despite this setback the Queens still have Marlee Ball. The Canadian scored 14 points in the previous game and is averaging 12.7 points per game in the WBBL.

For the Wildcats, Brooklyn Pannell has had an impressive start to the season averaging 20 points per game along with 2 steals. No doubt she will pose an attacking threat to the Queens. Pannell’s teammate Kennedy Nicolas has also been on fire so far, averaging a staggering 14.4 rebounds.

A word from the coach

Speaking this week Queens head coach Jay Marriott had some positive words to say on his teams’ opponents: “I think if you look at Nottingham their positioning does not belay their talent and also where they are going to finish at the end of the season. They are a first-class organisation, a first-class franchise.

“They’re trying to integrate some new and younger pieces. They’ve got a great coach up there where they’re going to get better throughout the season.

“I think if anybody has kind of fallen asleep on them then it’s a mistake and I believe we’re going into what’s going to be a really tough game.”

Marriott then went on to add, “they are really physical and rebound the ball really well and for us it’s can we keep our energy high for 40 minutes with a really short rotation.

“We’ve kind of accepted that we haven’t got the cavalry coming from around the corner. This is our group and we need to improve as a group. I think if we show a couple of percentages of growth from the last game then it’ll be a really competitive game.

“This next five game stretch I expect us to have a good account of ourselves.”

Where can I watch the game?

The game will be free to watch on the WBBL YouTube channel, with tip-off scheduled for 18.00 GMT.

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