BENDIGO Spirit coach Bernie Harrower has questioned his players hunger after Friday night’s shock home loss to the Sydney Uni Flames.
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Harrower labelled the defeat one of the most disappointing results he’s been involved in in his 20-year career at SEABL and WNBL level.
The Australian Pork Spirit led by 17 points six minutes into the first quarter, but were reeled in by the Flames and lost 67-60.
“With the way our attitude is at the moment, we can’t win the title,’’ Harrower said bluntly on Sunday.
“How can you be so good for eight minutes and then be so bad for the remaining 32 minutes?
“It’s a product of not having Kristi (Harrower) leading the team and maybe there’s some arrogance crept into the group.
“In the past we wouldn’t let leads like that slip. Every game we’ve lost this year we’ve led in the final quarter, but couldn’t finish the game off.
“It’s a pattern that’s emerging and it makes me wonder if we are hungry enough to win three-straight titles.”
The Spirit (9-4) remain in second place on the WNBL ladder behind Townsville (10-2).
Sydney Uni (7-6), Melbourne Boomers (8-7), Canberra Capitals (6-7) and Dandenong (6-7) remain in touching distance of the Spirit.
“There was so much riding on that game and we spoke about it all week,’’ Harrower said.
“Now we’re back in the pack and our chances of getting top spot off Townsville are virtually nil.
“We’ve got some tough games in the run home and we’re in a position where we could slip out of the top two.
“I’d be disappointed if the loss to Sydney didn’t hurt the girls. We missed 13 lay-ups for the game.
"Some of them were contested lay-ups, some of them were easy lay-ups. If you're missing 13 lay-ups in a game it shows me that mentally you're not ready to play or you you’re not up to playing at our level and that frustrates me.
"I don't want to take anything away from Sydney - they were very good, they were physical, they took us out of our stuff and we couldn't handle it.
"The bottom line is we let a lot of people down on Friday night."
The Spirit will return to training next Sunday, with their next game on Saturday, January 3 against the West Coast Waves at Bendigo Stadium.