McDaniel a driving force behind Bullets surge

The attention from the outside might only be starting to come, but Hostplus Brisbane Bullets Head Coach Justin Schueller and his teammate Mitch Norton are fully aware of how important Sam McDaniel is defensively to their NBL24 campaign.

McDaniel has joined the Bullets this season on the back of starting his NBL career at both Melbourne United and the Tasmania JackJumpers, and he was a key player in a championship at the former and then in the latter reaching a Grand Final series in their first NBL season.

On top of that, McDaniel won an NBL1 South championship at the Hobart Chargers back in 2022 and with the same team in 2023 was named the competition's Best Defensive Player, so his credentials were strong.

Schueller had worked with McDaniel previously in Melbourne and coached against him in NBL1, and he was one of his first targets to bring into the Bullets once he got the job for his first head coaching role in the NBL.

It's fair to say McDaniel has more than lived up to whatever expectations Schueller had of him and while he might only be now starting to get the recognition for his defence from the outside, he's been at a high level defensively right from his Bullets debut.

McDaniel is given all the biggest jobs across the league and that includes on superstar guards like Bryce Cotton, Tyler Harvey and Milton Doyle, or when needed he can even play bigger and step up to play on somebody like Gary Clark from the Illawarra Hawks.

It wouldn’t at all be a surprise to see McDaniel win the Damian Martin Trophy as the NBL Best Defensive Player come the end of the season. Schueller had full faith in him stepping up as a four man on Sunday with Josh Bannan and Casey Prather both out ill against the Hawks.

"All week for this one Sam-Mac was prepping for his usual match up with Harvey and then we had to throw him to Clark, and he is just outstanding for us defensively," Schueller said.

"For us to be able to throw those challenges to him and then we switch him back to Harvey after he got off in the first half, he's just doing a heck of a job."

It's not just the coaches appreciating what McDaniel is doing either, his teammates are fully aware of what a standout defender he is and in saying that, that's not to discredit what he provides offensively either.

Norton has been a regular contender for the Best Defensive Player award right throughout his 336-game NBL career and is fully appreciative of what a high level McDaniel is producing right now.

"It gives us a lot of confidence knowing that if there's a guy who is feeling hot, we can throw Sam at him and he's done a great job all season," Norton said.

"He deserves to be in the running for Defensive Player of the Year and he's unbelievable. He works his backside off, any game plan we have we discuss it and he's a big talking point in that with how we're going to defend scout and things like that. He's very knowledgeable and does everything that we need."

While Schueller knew he could rely on McDaniel to step up to play that little bit bigger in the four spot without Bannan and Prather on Sunday, but he also wanted to take a look at what a bigger line-up could look like.

The signs were also encouraging in terms of how things looked out there with Aron Baynes playing the power forward role with either Tyrell Harrison or Rocco Zikarsky as the centre.

"As soon as we knew those guys were out, I went to Sammy Mac and he's had to play the four for us a few times when Banno was out previously," Schueller said.

"So that's where we started but then as we started thinking about things, Baynesy could stretch the floor and there could be something in that for us, and we might as well find out now.

"That's where my head went and we probably used it more than we were expecting just because of foul trouble and situations like that, but we kind of got away with it for this game given we hadn’t practiced a second with it.

"That's the next thing for us, that if we go back and review it and believe it, then we'll find a way to be way better at it."

Speaking of Harrison, he is another player who could very well be in the mix to win the Damian Martin Trophy and his impact was significant in the wins last week against the JackJumpers and Hawks.

He came up against the likes of Marcus Lee, Will Magnay and Sam Froling along the way, and more than held his own showing just how much he has continued to thrive this season at the Bullets under Schueller.

"Tyrell was outstanding again and our ability to throw it into him, and him make a great decision for us whether that was to go at Froling or to find something on the floor, and his defensive presence," Schueller said.

"We were blitzing Harvey there for a bit and we trusted him with that, and he had a couple of key moments in that part. His IQ is really good in the game and he's a smart big, and I think people forget he's only 24 and the sky is still the limit for him.

"We've been challenging him to continue to get better and he had a bit of a dip there, but we sat with him and got him to narrow his focus.

"Since that, both games this week in particular has been a big impact for us and we trust him a lot, but the beauty of having three bigs is that someone will always be going any given night."

One player at the Bullets who it was hard to see going to another level this season because of the heights he has already reached in his career was captain Nathan Sobey.

However, he has been in some outstanding form virtually all season and continued to prove what an outstanding scorer he still is, but it's the growth in the rest of his game that has been most impressive to Schueller.

No longer does Sobey have to carry the burden of having to do everything for the Bullets, and he's learning to thrive in situations where he creates for his teammates and his leadership is growing all the time.

"He is becoming a genuine winner in this league and I think he saw the other night that other guys are going to be right there with him, and he doesn’t have to carry a load from a scoring point," Schueller said.

"He made an unbelievable assist in this game to Norto on a cut, he had a kick out to Whitey in the corner, and when he's a facilitator as well as a scorer I don't know how teams can really guard him.

"I always found him the hardest guard to come up with a decent scout against as an opposition coach so we're definitely trying to use that to our advantage, and he's definitely playing the right way."

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