THE Commonwealth Games gets under way next week in India and sadly there is no basketball.

As the England senior coach, it would have been nice to lead a team to the Commonwealth Games.

It seems the countries hosting the games tend to chose sports they feel they may do well in and sadly basketball does suffer.

But I’m really excited with what is going on here with Worcester Wolves.

We got off to a winning start against Cheshire Jets last Saturday in the British Basketball League Trophy.

While we only won the match by two points, there were a lot of good things to come out of the game.

It should have been more comfortable than the 70-68 scoreline suggests as we were 15 points up with five minutes to go.

But it meant I got a good idea of the players I should have on court for the final stages of a match. David Watts was named in the BBL team-of-the-week ‘off the bench’ after top-scoring for us once more.

Tin Tin, as David is known, is one of the players who is more than capable of starting for Wolves but the impact he makes coming off the bench is fantastic.

He will get you 12 to 15 points before the opposition even know what is going on.

It is always good to win your home matches so we must look to turn our University of Worcester court into a fortress and then try to pick up a few wins on the road.

We face our first double-header this weekend with a Trophy visit from Mersey Tigers tonight (7pm) before heading up to Chester to face the Jets once more.

It is another test for the players to see how they react to playing two games in as many days.

But I truly believe we have more depth to our squad this season and there are at least eight players who are more than capable of starting.

After the Tigers match, we are holding a meet-the-players event and it will be nice for the fans to come along, see our new-look squad and perhaps join our supporters’ club.

It is all go for me at the moment as yesterday I held trials for this year’s university teams.

Playing for the university could lead to some players, if they are good enough, forcing their way into the BBL team here.

That is why I will be coaching the university sides this season.

I’m sure there will be a cross-over between the two teams and I want to make sure there are not any mixed messages.

Playing for the university could be a pathway for students to make it into the Wolves so I’m expecting a competitive year.