BIO: Andrew Howey was born in Balmoral (VIC) and began playing basketball as a junior with the Bulleen basketball program.

NBL EXPERIENCE

Andrew Howey made his NBL debut with the North Melbourne Giants at 24 years of age. He went scoreless in his first NBL game.

Since 1986, the Giants had slowly crept closer and closer to winning their first NBL championship, with it all culminating this season. After missing the playoffs in 1986, Bruce Palmer replaced Les Riddle as coach and turned things around, coming within one game of winning the championship and come 1989, it was all business. The team added Cecil Exum and Ray Borner to the team’s frontcourt to backup Scott Fisher (32.1 points and 12.7 rebounds) and Tim Dillon (29.4 points and 10.0 rebounds), who again delivered two of the best statistical seasons in NBL history and Howey added 1.9 points and 1.3 rebounds as the team finished second in the regular season (17-7).

The League reigning champions the Canberra Cannons, who had defeated the Giants in the previous year’s grand final, finished one win ahead of the Giants (18-6 record) and in first place. After both team’s received a first round bye due to finishing in the top two spots the Cannons defeated the Sydney Kings to reach the Grand Final for the fourth time in seven seasons and North Melbourne went on to eliminate the Perth Wildcats in the semifinals. The Giants vs Wildcats series culimnated in the Giants defeating the Wildcats by 55 points win in game 3. With the game’s final score reading 165-110 saw the Giants finish with the highest score ever recorded in a NBL postseason game. A record which still stands today. Howey scored 10 points in the lob-sided victory but would not recieve court time in the Grand Final series.

The Giants went on to win the 1989 NBL Grand Final by winning both games of the series in convincing fashion.

The 1989 title was the first title won by a Victorian team in the modern era. Not since the St Kilda Saints won in 1980 during the League semi-professional years had a Melbourne team won a NBL championship. Fisher, who averaged 35 points and 12 rebounds in the series, was a easy choice for Grand Final MVP honours.

After winning the 1989 NBL championship star import Tim Dillon would return to the USA and was replace by Joe Hillman. While Hillman brought a nice scoring punch to the team, he wasn’t the rebounder or defender that Dillon was and although the team finished the regular season on top of the ladder they were eliminated by eventual champions the Perth Wildcats in the semifinals. Howey averaged 2.1 points and 1.9 rebounds.

The North Melbourne Giants had lost star forward Tim Dillon after their 1989 championship and had since failed to find a suitable replacement. For the 1991 season the team added Yale University grad Paul Maley who had played the previous season with the South Melbourne Saints. Howey would average 1.2 points alongside stars Fisher (30.3 points, 12 rebounds) and Maley (27.6 points, 10.2 rebounds) and help lead the Giants to a second place finish for the season. After eliminating the Geelong Supercats in the elimination finals in three games the Giants were defeated in the semifinals by rival club Eastside Melbourne Spectres.

With the South Melbourne Saints financially stressed at the end of 1991 and ownership unable to continue covering costs a merger was agreed to between the embattled Saints and nearby rivals, the Eastside Melbourne Spectres East Melbourne Magic. In 1992, the merged rosters became known as the South East Melbourne Magic. With the Spectres having the more successful team, having been one game away from being champions the prior season, the Magic retained Spectres coach Brian Goorjian to lead the team. Andrew Parkinson and Andrej Lemanis were the only players retained from the Saints roster, who were added to the core of the Spectres roster. only Andrew Parkinson and teenager Andrej Lemanis joined the otherwise Spectres laden roster, with Howey being added from the Supercats. Spectres leader Brian Goorjian remained on as coach.

Howey didn’t see a lot of court time that season, but the Magic would go on to finished on top of the ladder with a record of 26-5, before defeating the Melbourne Tigers in the Grand Final.

Howey was a part of the South East Melbourne Magic squad which won the 1992 NBL championship however Howey would only play in three games during the regular season and did not take the floor in any of their postseason games. He averaged 0.0 points and 1.3 rebounds for the season.

Andrew Howey played four seasons in the NBL, playing for both the North Melbourne Giants and the South East Melbourne Magic. He averaged 1.5 points, 1.2 rebounds, and 0 assists in 45 NBL games.

Dan Boyce (833 Posts)

Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.