BIO: Ronald Houdini Dorsey was born in Detroit, Michigan (USA) where he attended Pershing High School. After receiving no offers to Division I schools he enrolled at a local junior college, Schoolcraft JC .

NBL EXPERIENCE

Ron Dorsey made his NBL debut with the Cairns Taipans at 26 years of age. He scored two points in his first game.

After finishing one loss away from the wooden spoon in 2010, the Taipans underwent a major rehaul of their roster. While the core group of Ian Crosswhite, Dusty Rychart, Aaron Grabau and captain Phill Jones remained, Cairns replaced the rest of last year’s roster. Alex Loughton, the team’s major signing, returned to Australia after a season spent in Spain. Daniel Dillon, who had spent the past season in the state league, signed on as the Snake’s backup point guard, and imports Ayinde Ubaka and Ron Dorsey replaced Julien Mills and Rich Melzer.

After a modest start to the season, starting with one win from the first three games of the season, the Taipans became the surprise packed of the year. The team won five in a row and jumped from 7th place in round three to 2nd place by round nine.

A well-balanced attack from Cairns saw Ubaka (13.9 points, 2.7 rebounds, 4.0 assists), Dorsey (13.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.2 assists), Loughton (11.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.7 assists) and Crosswhite (11.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists) all score in double figures.

The Taipans finished the season on a four-game winning streak and in third place (16–12).

The semi finals saw them lose to Townsville in the opening game of the series before winning games two and three to advance through to the Grand Final series for the first time in franchise history.

Matching up against the New Zealand Breakers, Cairns suffered a thrashing in the series opener, going down 85–67 in Auckland.

Returning to Cairns for Game 2, the Taipans looked set for a three-point win in regulation before a three-pointer from Breakers guard CJ Bruton in the dying seconds sent the match into overtime. However, not to be outdone, five minutes later, Dorsey returned the favour, wiping out the Breakers’ three-point lead with a miraculous long-range buzzer beater, which forced the match into double overtime (It marked the first time in NBL history a play-off match was decided in double overtime)

With momentum now on their side, the Taipans took home a nail-biting 85–81 double-overtime win which sent the series back to New Zealand for a deciding third game.

The Taipans lacked the same spark In game three, with import pair Ubaka and Dorsey shooting 4-of-26 between them and the Breakers winning comfortably, 71–53.

MELBOURNE TIGERS
2011/12
With Trevor Gleeson replacing Alan Westover as coach, the Tigers off-season began with a re-tooling of the roster, which featured a glut of big men. With Corey Williams, Eric Devendorf, Luke Nevill and Wade Helliwell all exiting, coach Trevor Gleeson recruited the entire Cairns Taipans backcourt of Ayinde Ubaka, Ron Dorsey and Daniel Dillon to complement high-scoring forward Cam Tragardh. With Daryl Corletto, Liam Rush, Lucas Walker and Tommy Greer (who was named team captain) the Tigers looked to have turned their lop sided roster around and were primed for a successful season.

It was then the NBA, and its lock-out that saw the Tigers decide to reshuffle the deck.

With NBA free-agent and Australian Boomers player Patrick Mills without a contract, he headed home and negotiated a deal to play with Melbourne while he awaited the NBA’s decision to re-start the season. Mills, who became the first ‘active’ NBA player to compete in the NBL, forced the team to release long-time guard Daryl Corletto (who later signed with New Zealand) to make room for the NBA star.

The Tigers started the season with six wins, and three losses before Mills (averaging 18.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and 5 assists) up and left to play in China on a much larger contract.

The remainder of the season could be described as tumultuous at best. The peak of this was highlighted by majority owner Seamus McPeake storming into the Tigers’ locker room and unleashing a tirade on the players before firing Ubaka on the spot following Melbourne’s loss to Gold Coast (73-60) at the State Netball and Hockey Centre. Ubaka’s sacking occurred without coach Trevor Gleeson being aware, as both he and captain Tommy Greer were participating in a post-game press conference. Ubaka’s sacking would contravene one of the key agreements of Gleeson’s hiring that he have the final say on all player movements.

Ubaka (12.0 points, 2.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists) was immediately snapped up by Wollongong, where he saw out the rest of the season. Shortly after Melbourne signed Myron Allen (9.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists) as his replacement.

After the loss to the Blaze and Ubaka’s axing, the Tigers would reel off three straight losses and then finish their campaign by losing seven of their next nine games. The Tigers would miss the playoffs, finishing the regular season with a 11-17 record. Dorsey averaged 11 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.3 assists alongside Cam Tragardh (16.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.4 assists) who finished the year as Melbourne’s leading scorer, won the Tigers club MVP award and earned a spot on the All-NBL second team.

In 2013 the Melbourne Tigers released Dorsey in order to fit young shooting guard Chris Goulding into the team. Dorsey, who had a year remaining on his contract and was a fan favourite at the Tigers was home in the US awaiting the birth of his child at the time of being released.

Ron Dorsey played two seasons in the NBL, playing for both the Cairns Taipans and the Melbourne Tigers. He averaged 12.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.2 assists in 61 NBL games.

Dan Boyce (832 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.