Image via Geoff Adams/Illawarra Mercury.
The leading scorer for the ladder-leading Wollongong Rollerhawks, Brett Stibners has earned the Round 4 Player of the Week award.
Taking them to an undefeated 13-0 record, Stibners paced Wollongong with a near triple-double average in Round 4 as they claimed two wins over the Perth Wheelcats and Red Dust Heelers.
On Friday night against Red Dust, Stibners had an innocuous start to the round as Wollongong prevailed by 31 points but he still tallied a double-double with 12 points, five rebounds and ten assists.
The following morning, the Rollerhawks faced their toughest challenge of the weekend as they needed to come from four points down at half-time to defeat Perth, 76-67.
Turning things around with a 20-13 third quarter, Stibners added six points and three rebounds before consolidating the victory with eight points, three boards and two assists in the fourth term.
He finished with his second straight double-double, this time through rebounds, as he tallied 22 points on 10-19 shooting, ten rebounds, six assists and a steal.
Later that day, Wollongong backed up against Red Dust and earned a comfortable win as Stibners caught fire from deep.
He began the game with a three-pointer but with under seven minutes remaining, had only knocked down two for the game.
All of a sudden, Stibners drained his third three and then went on to hit four more from long range in the space of three and a half minutes.
The Aussie Roller capped off a memorable performance with his seventh three-pointer for the game coming on the final siren.
That shot also notched 51 points on the scoreboard and he combined that with 13 boards, five assists and a steal in a completely dominant game.
“I wasn’t shooting well during the weekend and I said to ‘Huss’, I’m going to score 50 and his reply was just make sure you make one basket and then I started shooting alright and Red Dust weren’t jumping so I kept shooting,” Stibners told the Illawarra Mercury.
Rounding out the weekend, the Rollerhawks took on Perth on Sunday but were not going to have a repeat of their clash the day before as a 16-7 second period set up a 16-point win.
Stibners collected his fourth straight double-double while playing all 40 minutes of the match, finishing with 27 points, ten rebounds and nine assists.
His current form, alongside the likes of Shawn Russell, Nick Taylor and Luke Pople, have Wollongong primed to claim a three-peat as we surpass the midway point of the regular season.
Brett Stibners Round 4 Stats: 28 points at 55% shooting including 7-23 (30%) three-point shooting, 9.5 rebounds (1.8 offensive) and 7.5 assists per game.