Basketball Aus. V NZ Gold Medal Game

[Ian]

NZ has given the Aussies their toughest game of the Commonwealth Games.

Australia 81

New Zealand 76

[drebin]

The coach will be breathing a sigh of relief after his dismal Olympics campaign. I see the Kings players all got plenty of court time (Jason Smith though was good tonight) 4 on court all toghether at one point and as usual he had the 36's player(s) (Holmes in this case and soon to be gone too) anchored to the bench. He probably has to move to the new Melbourne team to guarantee future Aust. games and decent court time!

[Wedgie]

Means nothing, it'd be like Andrew Jarman justifying his job by beating a competition comprised of amateur clubs.
Brian Goorjan has had full reign of his team unlike when Phil Smyth had the job when BA picked the sides for him and made some horrendous decisions.
Baskeball is a joke in the Commonwealth games IMHO.
Waste of time and by all reports it will be the first and last appearance of a great sport in this comp.

[drebin]

I wouldn't be so sure - lobbying by the FIBA officials may persude it to stay in 2010 at this point according to the commentators tonight. Also of interest the next President of FIBA is likely to be the current Oceania FIBA President - an Australian Bruce Ephstein?? (or something like that) and that may help it for one more games and hopefully some of the poorer performing nations get some more inernational exposure in other tournaments to be more competitive next time. I agree though it was a lopsided B-C grade comp saved by a close final. The ladies comp was far more lopsided though. The WNBL Champions - Canberra or even the Adelaide "Fella's" for that matter would have beaten any of the other countries themselves let alone having nearly our best available. Imagine what it would have been like if Penny Taylor & Kirsty Harrower had been available to play.
P.S. Don't forget it was only in the last decade or so that NZ men's teams have been world standard - I can remember Australia pumping them by big margins in the late 70' and well into the 80's in all the Oceania qualifying tournaments.

[Wedgie]

NZ mens basketball still isn't world standard, a couple of fluke results doesn't make them.
The only thing that's happened in recent times is Australian basketball has gone backwards at a rapid rate of knots to make it a closer comp between us and the Sheep dudes.

[drebin]

Well they did finish 4th in the 2002 World Championships - whether you call that a fluke or not. Throw in Mark Dickel and Sean Marks and they would give us a real run - even if we included Bogut and Luke Schenser(?). We have slipped though but I'm not sure of some of the selections of Goorjan though - he seems to favour players who play or have played for him and hates anyone from Adelaide - so that may hamper Schenser(?). It drove Maher to retire from International basketball after collected a arse full of splinters o the end of the bench over many years. We need a dominat big man - cue Bogut if the Bucks will allow him to play in the future and a penetrating point guard.

[Wedgie]

Well they did finish 4th in the 2002 World Championships - whether you call that a fluke or not.

Yes I do call that a fluke, absolute dream run through the entire championship through luck only, hence my comment.

[ORDoubleBlues]

Well they did finish 4th in the 2002 World Championships - whether you call that a fluke or not.

Yes I do call that a fluke, absolute dream run through the entire championship through luck only, hence my comment.

The one good thing that did come out of that result I felt was regardless of whether NZ overachieved, it at least showed that Smyth's men were beaten by a team that took things a fair way in those world championships and things weren't in anywhere near like a dire straits position that some would have had us think at the time.
Let's also not forget that the NBA All-Star laden United States finished 6th in this tournament after losing their final 3 games on the trot.