By Mark Murray
THE first mission of newly appointed Altona Gators coach David Maxwell will be to improve the foul shooting of the Big V side.
The Gators shot at less than 50 per cent from the foul line last season, something that Maxwell said wouldn’t win a lot of matches.
Altona will compete in Division Three of the Big V competition this year.
“You are never going to win any games if you are shooting at 48.9 per cent from the foul line,” Maxwell said.
“We’ll need to raise that to at least 70 to 75 per cent during games.
“So we have a few regimes that we’ll implement before and during the season and already I have seen improvement with the girls at the foul line.
“We’ve been working on it a lot over the last two weeks.”
Maxwell, who has been an assistant coach with Melbourne University for the past two years, said he had analysed video tape from last year and was confident the Gators would improve on their five wins next season.
“I have already gone through a lot of the deficiencies they had from last year and areas in particular to improve will be foul shooting and defence,” he said.
“I have a program to rectify that, and the girls that were selected in the team have been quite receptive to the different way of playing.
“We’ll be playing an aggressive, free-running type of game, so it should increase our point-scoring ability.
“We also need to decrease our turnovers.”
Maxwell has more than 25 years’ experience in basketball and hails from Perth.
He spent time with the East Perth Eagles before moving to Melbourne through his work. He has also coached Melton.
“It has been a journey, that’s for sure, and I’ve really enjoyed it all,” Maxwell said.
“Work brought me to Melbourne and it opened up a few doors with basketball.
“I just love coaching and love having an involvement with basketball and do it for the love of it.
“Basketball kept me out of trouble and off the streets when I was a young fellow, and that’s why I love putting things back into it.
“I’m just putting back into it what I got out of it when I was young.
“It gives the youth something to do and something else to focus on rather than getting into trouble.”
Maxwell has also tried his hand at refereeing, officiating in five international games for the Australian Defence Force.
