Shane Heal remains convinced the Crazy John's South Dragons will return to the playoffs this season despite a slow start to the HUMMER Championship NBL.
After going winless in their first six games the Dragons have bounced back in style with three victories from four starts, including a gritty road-win against top-four team the Razorbacks on Wednesday night.
Speaking after the win the player-coach revealed his belief in the team had never wavered.
"I felt better about our season when we were 0-6 than I did before the season started," Heal said.
"I felt like we were making inroads week-in, week-out and we'll look at the video from tonight and we know there's a lot of areas we've got to improve in."
"But I feel like we've got that potential to continue to improve and at 0-6 I said that I feel like we'll finish higher than we did last year - and we finished seventh."
Heal revealed he had taken several players to task following Saturday's disappointing loss to the Crocodiles but said he was delighted with the response.
"I felt like there was a massive difference in our attitude from Saturday night and you know we went pretty hard at some of the guys on Saturday night about the mindset that we came out with," Heal said.
"(It's) a credit to all of the guys to be able to bounce back."
And Heal hopes the triumph over West Sydney sparks continued success.
"When West Sydney made a run and they were six points up I think in the third quarter I thought the guys really stuck together really well and it was a really big win for us that hopefully we can move on from," he said.
"It was a really important time for us tonight, we really pinned this up as an opportunity to go at a team that we respect and to be able to try and even up the score from the first game (in round one)."
"Splits are going to become so important and we feel like we're going to be in the mix come finals time."
When asked when he himself would return from the wounded list, Heal replied: "I'm a bit worried that my ankle's going to be good and they're going to be like 'no you stay on the sideline old fella'."
"I'm not really sure, it's just going to be a matter of assessing it over the next couple of days."