COACH'S SUCCESS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31143, 20 August 1966, Page 11

COACH'S SUCCESS

I.'EW representative coaches in New Zealand could match the record of Mr R. Milligan, who has directed the fortunes of the Canterbury B men’s basketball team for the last two seasons. Since he was asked to take over the team it has lost only two games, one against Mid-Canterbury in 1965 add one against Nelson B this season. And this outstanding record was achieved without any previous coaching experience at representative level. At 22, Mr Milligan is the youngest representative basketball coach in the country. He plays A grade for the High School Old Boys club and would probably be in the Canterbury B team himself if he was not coaching it. This year the Canterbury B team, from which many of the province’s senior representatives could come in

the future, finished runnerup to Nelson B in the South Island B grade championship. It lost to Nelson, 34-27, in its lowest scoring game of the season. Earlier it had avenged its defeat by Mid-Canterbury last season with an overwhelming 72-23 win. In nine games the team scored 437 points and had 314 scored against it. The leading points scorer was G. Orchard, who was later promoted to the Canterbury A side for the national tournament. Playing in all nine games, he scored 148 points. He was also seventh highest scorer in inter-club games with 98. K. Milligan, who made an occasional appearance in the A team, scored 75 and S. Hunt scored 62. G. McNaught showed considerable scoring ability, netting 34 points in only four games.