Bullets hold heads high amid challenges

There are plenty excuses the Brisbane Bullets could make with the horror run of injury luck, but neither coach Justin Schueller nor captain Mitch Norton are focused on anything but winning the last two games of NBL25.

While from inside the coaching and playing group the Bullets aren’t interested in making excuses and aren’t asking for any sympathy, the reality is that it has been a remarkably bad luck injury run all throughout NBL25.

It even started before the season begun when Sam McDaniel injured a shoulder in the NBL1 North Grand Final series for the Brisbane Capitals, and then after the opening game at HoopsFest he required season-ended surgery on that shoulder.

Josh Bannan also suffered a pre-season hand injury that saw him miss the opening two games and now along the way, Jarred Bairstow (ankle) and James Batemon (hamstring) suffered season-ending injuries too.

Deng Adel has had a rough run with hand and groin injuries to only play 10 games while Rocco Zikarsky (knee) has now missed nine of the last 11 games, Tyrell Harrison (concussion) the last six and Emmett Naar the last five.

Then just to top it off after the Bullets beat the New Zealand Breakers on Friday night and in between hosting Melbourne United for their last home game of the season on Sunday, Bannan was ruled out with concussion.

Then during the game Cook's afternoon ended prematurely too and while you couldn’t fault the efforts put in by the Bullets players out there in the second half, you couldn't help but think of the impact Harrison, Zikarsky, Bannan, Cook, McDaniel, Bairstow, Naar and Batemon could be having.

"There's definitely been a look around about how many black cats, ladder or broken windows have been there at our facility, and if I spend my time worrying about that I'll go insane," Schueller said.

"What I've tried to focus on and what the group's tried to focus on is keeping on getting better every day to control what we can control.

"The reality is when JB (Batemon) got injured we were around that top four mark and we know that, but that's no excuse for us not to continue to try to do our best and find ways to impact winning.

"There are challenges we're facing time and time again, but no one is going to have sympathy for us and it's about how we continue to forge forward.

"That's the pride I have in this group and the what if that sits in my head is what does this group really look like when it is fully healthy, and at full strength."

While at the end of the day the reason players are unavailable makes no difference on game day, but the fact that the reason most Bullets players have missed games is just horror luck is a degree of comfort to Schueller.

There are things you can't control and that includes a player needing shoulder surgery or ankle surgery or tearing a hamstring in the strangest of circumstances, or now with Bannan and Harrison suffering concussions or anything else that has popped up.

"We're always big on the why in the program. Why we do things and if something's not right we look at the why," Schueller said.

"We know we got a couple of groins early in the year when we were travelling around back and forth practice wise from different facilities, but outside of that it is all impact injuries or just flat out of luck.

"JB's hamstring is one of the weirdest moments for a hamstring to occur, now we've had two concussion with elbows to the head and you can even go back to Sam McDaniel.

"If we sit here and try to be miserable then we can't forge forward, so our mindset has to be what can we control and how do we keep getting better to keep ourselves alive."

Norton is in his first season as captain at the Bullets and while it couldn’t have been more challenging purely on a personnel front, he loves the heart his teammates continue to show and the support they get from the Brisbane community.

That was on show on Sunday where a season best crowd of 7229 turned up at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

"We're not a group that makes excuses and we're not doing that now, and we've got two games to win and that's where all our focus is now," Norton said.

"It's been amazing the support we've received. It's a new arena for us, a new home for us and there was a lot of firsts for us this year.

"We've got our training facility finished, we're in a new arena that the fans are loving, and we're getting out in the community a bit more which is good to try and give back as much as we can. We love it here and BEC has been amazing to us and we're excited for what's building."