IT IS out with the new and in with the old at Hume City Basketball Club, with another coaching shuffle at the Big V powerhouse.

Men’s Championship coach Damien Prior was given his marching orders after round four, with the Broncos winless from five games.

Former women’s Championship coach and club vice-president Glen Milner stepped in to fill the void and will take the top job until the end of the season.

Prior, who was in the first of a three-year contract at the club, originally accepted an offer to stay on as an assistant, but later changed his mind and moved on.

Milner said he and president Peter Jackson decided something had to be done after the club’s poor start to the year.

“We certainly felt that the men’s team wasn’t performing to its potential,” he said.

“More pointedly was the fact that we were having some player representations about morale being low and there seemed not to be a clear direction of where the team was heading and a definition of roles.”

While Milner emphasised that Prior had a bright coaching future ahead of him, he said he and Jackson thought Prior was not ready to lead the Broncos’ program.

“We weren’t convinced that he had the necessary experience to handle the situation with where it was at, so I put forward the proposal that I would step in as the lead coach and he would see how I dealt with the current situation and he could develop his coaching as a result of that.”

The change paid off, but not immediately - the Broncos took a 29-point thumping at the hands of La Trobe City, but a week later bounced back and claimed their first win of the season against Diamond Valley.

Milner has revamped the side, putting a greater emphasis on defence and basing its offence more around its number one danger man: Ian Crosswhite.

The 210cm NBL star had a lean start to his first season with the Broncos, averaging around 19 points a game but having little overall impact.

But in his two games under Milner, Crosswhite is averaging 24 points, and is coming off a season-high 32 points against Diamond Valley.

“I’ve changed quite a few things in terms of the team,” Milner said.

“We were certainly a run-and-gun team, a transition team... it means that people like Crosswhite, who should be a target for us, seldom becomes a target because by the time he’s got to the end of the floor the shot has gone up.

“You’ve got to use your weapons and Crosswhite is certainly a focus.

“We didn’t really have many defensive principles or framework in place and that’s been our focus on the training track.”

Milner’s influence was again on show on the weekend, with Hume City smashing Eltham 132-79, avenging the two-point loss to the Wildcats back in round two.

As predicted, it was Crosswhite (27 points, eight rebounds) and Jermaine Maybank (30, 13) who did the damage, while perimeter threat Michael Petridis (20 points) stepped up with three three-pointers, shooting at 100 per cent from beyond the arc.

The women’s Championship side crushed Diamond Valley 105-71, with Katrina Hibbert scoring 30 points for the first time this season, while Sharin Milner chimed in with 24.