Vickerman Backs Caroline Effort

Melbourne United head coach Dean Vickerman has praised import forward Jordan Caroline for his efforts in last week’s blowout loss to the Sydney Kings, but he’s challenged the forward to cut out some of the errors in his game.

The season-ending injury to Ariel Hukporti has seen Caroline moved to the centre position for much of his playing time, and while he's traditionally a strong-rebounding forward, at just 200cm he's often outsized by his direct opponent.

He finished the Kings game with 10 points and 10 rebounds – he was one of only two United players to hit double digits in the scoring column.

“His effort has been unbelievable,” Vickerman said of the forward. “We look at statistics and numbers and Catapult (GPS) measures and he’s one of the hardest workers in our team.

“We congratulated him for those things – for the effort – and we talked about the skill errors and where he’s going to have more advantages.

“He feels like he hasn’t contributed enough to this group right now … he has the ability to play both four and five and we’ll see that in this game (against Perth).”

United travel to Perth to take on the Wildcats tonight at 9:30pm AEDT.