Now that the Boomers have gone the way of the Matildas and Kookaburras — that is, heading out the exit from the 2024 Paris Olympics, considerably earlier than expected — the post mortem can begin.
Australia’s senior men’s basketball team came undone at the quarter-finals, against Serbia and their ace do-it-all centre, Nikola Jokic.
On paper, losing to Serbia, a basketball-mad nation which has produced many of the finest to bounce a ball, wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. This was different. This was nasty.
A loss, in overtime, after the Boomers had built a 24-point lead, only to squander the advantage in the third-quarter, was as miserable as they come. And this team, over decades, has produced some miserable tournament moments, many of them in the play-off for bronze.
Andrew Bogut has thoughts.
Speaking on NBL Media’s The Gold Standard podcast, Bogut, the retired former Golden State Warriors and Sydney Kings champion, identified the squad’s problems. Hero-ball, turnovers, dud possessions.
“The story of our tournament, we’ll look elite for four or five minutes and then look piss poor for four or five minutes,” he explained. “We just couldn’t find that consistency…you got to turn that piss poor into just average and you’ll be fine. Everyone has ups and downs in games, but it was the contrast between how elite we were at times to then just fall off a cliff…(it) cost us and Serbia took advantage of that momentum.”
The Boomers’ defense “was pretty good throughout the game but in the second half, it’s hard to keep getting stops when you go down and just lay absolute eggs offensively.”
An unsatisfying 1-win, 3-loss tournament, coming off a World Cup blank, spells the end of the Rose Golden Generation. There’s no fairytale medal for the veteran trio of Patty Mills, Matthew Dellavedova and Joe Ingles, whose veteran presence was bolted to bench through these Games.
In the positive column, Josh Giddey, at 21 years of age, looks to be a superstar in waiting. Jack McVeigh can score on the biggest stage, Dante Exum and Dyson Daniels stepped up, and “we got other guards coming up and knocking on the door,” notes Bogut.
On the question of coach Goorjian, Basketball Australia, the sport’s governing body, needs “to start from zero” in its recruitment process, says Bogut, “start a pool of maybe 10 to 15, narrow that down to five and then have your hardcore interviews.” To locate the right replacement, “have some Australian candidates, have some Euro candidates, have some American candidates.”
The Opals, meanwhile, can go some way to avenge the Boomers’ loss when they compete against Serbia in their own quarter-final match on Wednesday night. By defeating the highly-ranked home team, France, in their final pool match, the Opals appear to be hitting peak form ahead of the medals round.
