Harman Patil (Editor)

1979 NBL season

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Sport
  
Basketball

Champions
  
St. Kilda Saints

Start date
  
1979

Champion
  
Southern Melbourne Saints

Top seed
  
Southern Melbourne Saints

TV partner
  
ABC

Season MVP
  
Ken Richardson

Runners-up
  
Canberra Cannons

Top scorer
  
Cal Bruton

Number of teams
  
10

Finals champion
  
Southern Melbourne Saints

League
  
National Basketball League

Duration
  
24 February 1979 – 23 March 1979 10 June 1979 (Grand Final)

The 1979 NBL season was the inaugural season of competition since its establishment in 1979. A total of ten teams contested the league. The regular season was played between 24 February 1979 and 2 June 1979, and was followed by Grand final on 10 June 1979.

Contents

Regular season

The home and away season took place over 15 rounds between 24 February 1979 and 23 March 1979 with grand final on 10 June 1979.

Ladder

This is the ladder at the end of season, before the finals. In all, 90 games were played, 18 for each team. The top two teams then played a sudden death grand final.

There was only one final played in this season and it was contested by the Top 2 teams.

Grand Final

The Saints won on a reverse layup just before the buzzer by Peter Vitols.

Points Per Game

  1. Calvin Bruton - 33.2 PPG (18 games for the Brisbane Bullets)
  2. Ken Richardson - 26.2 PPG (18 games for the West Adelaide Bearcats)
  3. Dave Ankeney - 26.1 PPG (18 games for the Newcastle Falcons)
  4. Jim Slacke - 23.8 PPG (18 games for the Illawarra Hawks)
  5. Cal Stamp - 23.3 PPG (18 games for the Canberra Cannons)

Field Goal %

  1. Dave Ankeney - 50.0% (18 games for the Newcastle Falcons) (165/330)
  2. Dan Riley - 50.0% (18 games for the Newcastle Falcons) (146/292)
  3. Glen Ryan - 50.0% (17 games for the Newcastle Falcons) (63/126)
  4. Darrell Corcoran - 50.0% (18 games for the West Sydney Westars) (66/132)
  5. Richard Dunphy - 50.0% (16 games for the West Sydney Westars) (109/218)

Foul Shot %

  1. Jim Slacke - 80.8% (63/78)
  2. David Leslie - 80.6% (54/67)
  3. David Symth - 78.7% (48/61)
  4. Calvin Bruton - 78.5% (113/144)
  5. Gary Fox - 77.8% (49/63)

References

1979 NBL season Wikipedia
(Text) CC BY-SA