The Melbourne Tigers left possibly the biggest imprint in Australian basketball history, winning four NBL championships in fifteen years (1993 to 2008) and being home to basketball royalty like Andrew Gaze, Lanard Copeland, Mark Bradtke and Chris Anstey.
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Al Westover, who was born in California and originally left the states to join the Tigers as a player during the 1970s, re-joined the team as a coach in 1992 and was a part of all four of the club’s championship runs.
Al, who left the Tigers after playing in one NBL season with the team, returned eight years later to assist head coach Lindsay Gaze, a partnership which lasted until 2005 when Lindsay retired, and Al was named head coach.
In his first year as coach, Al not only won the NBL Coach of the Year Award but won the NBL championship with a re-tooled roster featuring Chris Anstey on his return from stints in the NBA and Europe.
Two years later, Westover and Anstey won another NBL Championship, a feat that saw Westover become the first coach in NBL history to reach the Grand Final in each of his first four years as coach, resulting in two Championships and two Runners Up.
Four NBL Championships and four runners-up later, Al was unceremoniously fired from his coaching role with the Tigers and never coached again in the NBL.
Westover remains the second-winningest coach in NBL history (134-74 win-loss record).
Al Westover Resume
Playing:
1978 to 1986. Spent the 1984 and 1985 NBL seasons with Melbourne and Geelong, respectively.
Coaching:
Assistant Coach NBL (1992 to 2004)
Head Coach NBL (2005 to 2011)
Head Coach Tiger Junior Boys (1992 to 2004)
Awards:
SEABL Championships: 1 (1983)
NBL Championships: 4 (1993, 1997, 05/06 & 07/08)
NBL Coach of the Year (2005/2006)
Captain SEABL Championship Team (1983)
Captain Tigers Inaugural NBL Team (1984)
VBA 1st All Star Team (1981)
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Podcast topics include;
- Where Al Westover is coaching these days (2:00)
- Arriving in Australia as a player and memories of the VBL of the ’70s and ’80s (4:00)
- Why the Melbourne Tigers chose to play in the Victorian Basketball League instead of the NBL in the 1980s (7:00)
- Playing in the NBL during the 1980s and memories of the competition (10:00)
- Joining the Tigers as an assistant coach (11:00)
- How the Melbourne Tigers linked China to the NBL (14:00)
- The Tigers V Magic rivalry of the 1990s (17:00)
- The Tigers’ first championship in 1993 (19:00)
- The second title in 1997 (21:00)
- How Lindsey and Alan juggled the coaching responsibilities of the team between 1992 and 2005 (24:00)
- Taking over as coach in 2005 and adding Chris Anstey to the roster (25:30)
- Winning the 2006 championship as head coach of the Tigers (27:00)
- Falling short to the Brisbane Bullets in 2007 (32:00)
- Coaching Chris Anstey (36:00)
- Coaching against his former Tigers teammate Brian Goorjian (40:00)
- Facing the South Dragons in the Tigers’ fourth Grand Final in four years (44:00)
- Did the ‘Gaze Era’ Melbourne Tigers underachieve by only winning two titles (48:00)
- The Tigers sack Al Westover despite delivering 4 Grand Final appearances in five seasons (49:30)
- Coaching in Japan (57:00)
- The highlights and learning moments of his basketball journey (59:00) (2:00)
All of this and a whole lot more…
