After a scathing assessment of his team’s last round performance in the Men’s State League Basketball division one competition, Bathurst Goldminers’ coach Matt Chapman only sees a single direction his team can go in their match against the Wagga Wagga Heat tomorrow night.

Chapman is hopeful his side will have learnt their lessons from an 18-point loss to the Shoalhaven Tigers last week when they play host to Heat at the Bathurst Indoor Sports Stadium.

“There’s going to be a lot of changes, not just in the way that we play, but also in our lineup,” he said.

“I’m bringing up Will Cranston to the point guard role and that will allow Kieran Osborn to go to shooting guard, which I think will help us a lot. 

“Andrew Manios will finally be able to play his first game for us. He’s from Sydney and had trouble commuting, but now that he’s found a place in Orange he can make it. He’ll get a lot of rebounds for us and get a lot of those scrappy points under the basket that we’ve been struggling with lately.

“It’s that time of the season where you’ve got to put up with what you’ve got or make changes.”

Staunch defence will be needed from Chapman’s side if they’re to get the better of the team currently running second in the competition.

The Goldminers will be out to snap a three-game losing streak.

Wagga come into the match off a narrow two-point loss to the Canberra Gunners in a top-of-the-table match.

Goldminers go into tomorrow’s meeting with a 2-4 record and will be hungry to start putting forward some positive results to show their finals credentials.

“Wagga and Canberra are the two teams to beat. Wagga have Gage Daye, their import player. He’ll score 30 points guaranteed in every game he plays, so the plan is to minimise his touches and get the ball out of his hands as much as we can. They’ve only got one other player who does all the shooting,” Chapman said.

“I think it’s going to be okay when we’re trying to score against them. The difference in the game will come down to what we’re able to do in defence. I say it nearly every week, but we’ve got a really talented group of players, it’s just about everyone clicking and getting on the same page.”

Goldminers and Heat tip-off from 5pm tomorrow.