Nothing will stop JackJumpers fighting in finals

The worst nightmare might have eventuated in the last game of the regular season for the Tasmania JackJumpers with Nick Stoddart joining the injury list, but for good reason coach Scott Roth knows his players are still going to be mighty tough to overcome.

The JackJumpers were already locked into sixth position and couldn’t move up or down heading into the last game of the regular season two weeks ago against the Illawarra Hawks at MyState Bank Arena.

What Roth was praying for was that the JackJumpers wouldn’t suffer any further injuries but that didn’t end up happening when Stoddart injured an ankle and now he will be ruled out as well for however far the team advances in the finals.

He joins Will Magnay, Ben Ayre and Bryce Hamilton as being ruled out as well through injuries over the last month of the regular season and that was with Sean Macdonald rupturing his ACL before NBL26 even started.

Despite all that, the JackJumpers have still qualified for finals in sixth position and for all those reasons simply on a personnel issue and the heart and spirit it's taken to make it, it's every bit of an achievement to be celebrated as winning the championship in NBL24 or reaching a Championship Series in NBL22.

The JackJumpers will now only have Anthony Drmic, Majok Deng, David Johnson, Nick Marshall, Tyger Campbell, Archie Woodhill and Josh Bannan as fully rostered players available for Thursday night's Play-In Qualifier against Melbourne United at John Cain Arena.

They will be topped up by Brody Nunn, Jacob Richards and Ryley Haywood, and maybe even Kobe Williamson if he's healthy, but even with those circumstances, Roth knows the fighting performance the JackJumpers will provide.

"Right now, we have eight and (Anthony) Drmic is one of those that is day to day as we go and he's been that way, but we have eight," Roth said.

"For us, it's just about putting the right foot forward and it's a free swing. No one's expecting anything from us and our guys will play without fear of failure, and we'll just go out and have some fun out there and enjoy ourselves.

"They've earned their way to get to this point and we'll do the best we can with whoever is able to show up."

Roth is the sort of coach that while there's a game ahead of his team, he's never one to look back too much and he doesn’t want to pat his players on the back too much while he still wants them to remain focused on what lies ahead.

That's still the case right now with the JackJumpers preparing for a do-or-die battle with Melbourne on the road on Thursday night, but he is still beaming with pride that his players have done the state of Tasmania proud to even qualify for the finals against the adversity they've faced.

"Obviously we're quite proud of what we've accomplished over the last five years and last year we only missed out on percentage points," Roth said.

"It was a little bit of déjà vu to last year when the injuries transpired when we were in third and all of a sudden down to sixth, and we lost a lot of important players like we have this year again.

"For us to grind our way in, I'm quite proud of our group and the resilience they've shown to get through that.

"It would have been very easy to let go of the rope at that point, but that six weeks really showed a lot of character and what our standards are down in Tasmania."

There have been some high marks so far in the history of the JackJumpers including getting to that Championship Series in their first ever season and winning a championship in their third, but that's not what Roth wanted to build a culture for.

It's easy for everyone to thrive and enjoy themselves when you're winning and things are going well, but over the past 12 months that culture has truly been tested.

The JackJumpers were rolling late last season before the rug was pulled from under them with some horrific injuries and even then they only narrowly missed out on reaching the finals.

Now this season just as things were coming together in exciting fashion, they have lost Magnay, Ayre, Hamilton and Stoddart to injury on top of having been without Macdonald from the very start of NBL26.

It's for these exact moments of adversity that Roth built a culture with the JackJumpers to stand up during and that's just what has happened with them putting a tremendous fighting effort together to even make the finals.

And now that they are there, they aren’t about to just lie down either.

"Our strength is our culture and we built that day one when we got down there for days that weren’t going to be great," Roth said.

"Culture's very easy to fall in line with when you're winning, but really culture for us is for when the standards are going to be maintained and the culture will be maintained no matter what's going on.

"So when it's not so good, what do you do? A lot of teams will just give in and go their different ways or complain, but our culture is the foundational things that we do down there and that's what we maintain whether it's a good day or a bad day.

"We built this team on having some bad days and weeks, and being able to fall back on our standards and my job is to hold them accountable. That's what I do."

Whether or not anyone from the outside gives the JackJumpers a chance on Thursday night and even beyond is of no consequence to Roth because he knows he's been part of building a program that will fight to the end no matter their circumstances.

And it's only fitting in a lot of ways that it's Melbourne they are taking on in yet another finals battle given the history of gritty battles between the two teams dating all the way back to when the JackJumpers beat them in the semi finals of NBL22.

"Well, I don’t know if we're underdogs, we're just going to show up and you can tag us however way you want to tag us," Roth said.

"We'll be there and we're not apologising for finishing sixth, we'll show up and give it a swing."