Northside Wizards are playing like a contender

By Rani Hodges for NBL1.com.au 

We’re two rounds into the NBL1 North season and analyst Jon Guarna has highlighted the amount of talent that has already been showcased in the women’s league. 

With preseason predictions placing the Northside Wizards as a favourite, they’ve proved their worthiness with a powerful 2-0 start.

Guarna praised Wizards star and last week’s Foot Locker Player of the Week Courtney Woods on her efforts in the absence of leader Tiana Mangakahia last weekend.  

Woods was a championship player in the most recent WNBL season for the Townsville Fire and seems to be carrying that momentum over to NBL1 North.

“It’s been a great start, they recruited extremely well. Led by Tiana Mangakahia who was actually away this past week,” Guarna said on the latest episode of The NBL1 Show.

“Courtney Woods came into the group and obviously coming off that WNBL championship. That experience and that season really carried over into her debut with the Wizards.”

The Wizards are at the top of the ladder and Guarna believes they have set “championship aspirations”. 

“The Wizards are sitting pretty at the top of the ladder, a lot of people I spoke to in the preseason predicted that they’d be there.

“It’s good to see them start the season off well because there are championship aspirations for them.”

An impressive point guard that’s caught Guarna’s attention in the first two rounds is 32-year-old Ariana Moorer for the Gold Coast Rollers. 

Moorer is averaging 29 points, 16 rebounds and 6 assists to start the 2023 season, a player which Guarna says the Rollers will highly benefit from this year. 

“She has been amazing for Gold Coast, we had her in the Game of the w=Week in Round 1 and she had a massive double-double,” Guarna said.

“What’s most impressive is that she’s a point guard and she’s doing a lot of work in the paint. Rebounding the ball, getting her teammates involved and that’s really what this Rollers group needed.

“They needed someone to create shots for themselves, but also to get the rest of the team involved. She has done an amazing job of that so far with two rounds.”

In her first game, Moorer recorded 37 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists for the Rollers, and 21 points in their second game against Ipswich Force. 

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