The Canterbury Rams will again have to overcome the absence of influential American guard Glen Dandridge on their National Basketball League southern swing this weekend.
Canterbury, who have won three of their past four games, take on defending champions Southland in Invercargill tonight, before facing Otago in Dunedin on Sunday afternoon.
Dandridge travelled with the Rams last weekend on their away doubleheader against Wellington and Waikato, despite hyperextending his elbow earlier in the week.
It was hoped he might recover in time to be available for Sunday's game against Waikato, which the Rams won in overtime, but was still troubled by the injury.
Dandridge was assessed by doctors this week and coach Dave Harrison said it appeared he had suffered a displaced fracture or ligament damage.
He is averaging a team-high 18.9 points per game, which means Canterbury will need Jeremy Kench, Marcel Jones and Matt Rogers to continue to pick up the scoring slack in his absence.
Fellow American Rogers was outstanding for the Rams in last weekend's doubleheader, scoring 33 and 29 points, while shooting at 60 per cent from the field. The 2.11m centre was known as a strong outside shooter in college and showed his touch, hitting seven of 10 threes against Waikato.
Canterbury will be short-manned for tonight's game against Southland with Richie Edwards suspended after being ejected against Waikato for swearing at the officials. Edwards will be available for the Otago clash.
The Rams have played their best basketball of the season over the past fortnight since being blown out by 25 points at home by the Super City Rangers.
They have addressed their defensive issues and are giving up 85 points per game in their last four contests. What is most impressive is that opposition sides are shooting just 40 per cent from the floor during that span.
Harrison said they had only worked on defence at training since the Rangers loss and it was reaping benefits. With so many scorers in the Rams line-up, he believed their offence would flow from their defence if they could gain turnovers and rebounds.
"The feeling I get is they want to play defence and they want to get this right," Harrison said.
"They were pretty hurt with where things were at after that [Rangers] game."
Southland's American duo of Kevin Braswell and Brian Conklin will be vital to their chances tonight. Braswell puts up a lot of shots and Harrison said they needed to make sure they pressured him on defence and gave him no easy looks.
- The Press
