Roth: Cotton ‘scares the death out of you’

Few coaches have seen Bryce Cotton up close as often as Scott Roth. He witnessed that dominance first-hand as an assistant in Perth, and now, in his sixth season on the JackJumpers bench, he has been on the wrong end of more Cotton brilliance than most opposing coaches would care to count.

Yet the respect has never wavered. Some nights, even as Cotton is taking the game out of his team’s hands, Roth can only sit back and admire it.

Friday night was no exception.

Cotton poured in 35 points, including 8 straight after scores were locked at 82 with 2:13 left, as the Adelaide 36ers handed the League-leading JackJumpers a 94-88 loss at MyState Bank Arena.

Roth threw everything at him. Nick Marshall carried the main assignment, with DJ Johnson and Taran Armstrong taking turns to help out, but Cotton still went 13-from-26 from the field and ultimately won the game for his team.

“You don’t want to go down to the last two minutes, particularly in a tight game with him running around and he scares the death out of you just in general,” Roth said.

“He made the shots he needed to make, obviously. He’s a hell of a player. He’s a hell of a kid. I love watching him play.

“As I’ve said many, many times, he’s one of the best players in the world that’s not in the NBA.

“When he walks in the building, he’s done it year in and year out. He’s just, you know, wonderful, wonderful player to watch and he had a hell of a night obviously.

“His demeanour is the thing I’m most impressed with him because it’s just night in and night out people are just after him and he’s been doing it for seven or eight years and he just keeps showing up and hugely impactful wherever he goes.

“Yeah, I love him to death.”

But for all of Cotton’s brilliance, Roth admitted his side had also hurt itself.

“It’s the others and the foul discipline here. You know, they shoot 29 foul shots in our gym and those disparities are discipline areas that hopefully we can improve on,” he said.

There was still plenty to like about Tasmania’s effort. Armstrong was outstanding again with 20 points and 10 assists, while captain Will Magnay added 19 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks.

With Tasmania, now 4-2, hosting the New Zealand Breakers on Sunday and the Brisbane Bullets on Wednesday, Roth flagged Armstrong’s workload as something to manage.

“He’s got a really good competitive spirit. So, we need to see how we can get his minutes down a bit more and get him some rest at time, too,” Roth said.