Hoops

Stankovic Cup Final: Australia vs Slovenia

Knowing how mercurial Nielsen was when we beat them a coupla days ago - the hype led to letdown.

Tournament MVP: Goran Dragic (Slovenia)

All-Tournament Team
Dragic (Slovenia)
Mills (Australia)
Jianlian (China)
Becirovic (Slovenia)
Andersen (Australia)

Basketball Australia Recap: http://linky.com.au/bg49t

Joe Ingles and David Andersen top-scored for the Boomers with 14 points apiece. Mark Worthington and Aron Baynes each added six points and Damian Martin and David Barlow five apiece. For Slovenia Sani Becirovic had a game-high 20 points.

Let's put this loss into a bit of perspective.

First of all, Slovenia are a very good team and were missing a couple of players from their best possible outfit as well. Slovenia finished 4th overall in the 2009 Eurobasket, behind only Spain (1st), Serbia (2nd) and Greece (4th). Slovenia lost the bronze medal game by just 1 point to the Greek's. So a 1-1 record at this early stage of prerations with the one of the 4 best team's in Europe is not that bad really!

Yes we would have all loved to win and successfully defend our Stankovic Cup title. But with the WC's just around the corner, I would rather that we get the bad games out of the way now, and our flaws addressed exposed now so that they can be addressed and corrected by the time we arrive on the WC stage.

What is certain is that we need to address our rebounding, and hopefully with a fit Nielsen (who missed the last 2 games) and the addition of Maric this area gets addressed.

We also need to finetune our offensive structure. It is great to have movement, but movement for movement's sake is not going to get the job done. the movement needs to have better purpose and until the players adapt or buy-in to this system, we will continue to struggle offensively if we keep missing the 3-ball like we did last night.

We are also being exposed at the popint guard spot. Mills has been erratic, brilliant one moment and then making a clumsy turnover the next. Ingles' has shown some great play making skills, but he often tries to force it too much leading to costly turnovers. Bruton's retirement will hurt us badly at this WC I'm afraid, although his absence could have us better positioned for London due to the experience guys like Mills and co will get this time around.

Hurley, please watch your language.

Game over. A lot of guys had very poor nights tonight. Chief man MIA was Newley. I don't mind if he misses, but he should at least drive to the basket half a dozen times a game. I can't remember one drive from him tonight.

Gibbo and Marto were both good. Mills was horrible. When his shot isn't dropping, he really struggles to create for anyone else.

Ingles was our best player IMO. He still mishandles the ball too much, but he is the only guy on the team who can really create for himself and others.

Andersen was ok, but he still blows hot and cold. Was by far our best big man though.

Ogilvy did come and do a solid job defensively for a bit in the 4th, but seems to have zero confidence around the basket on offence these days.

In the end, that game came down to the fact that our guys don't know how to set up scoring opportunities. Hope Brown can get enough time with the team to actually drill some decent plays into them.

Slovenia outrebounded the Boomers and had a better field goal percentage. Turnovers didn't help the Boomers much either.

Game Over

Boomers 63
Slovenia 71

Congratulations to Slovenia.

:23 to go

Boomers 60
Slovenia 68

:30 to go

Boomers 57
Slovenia 68

ARRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! That is all....

:36 to go

Boomers 57
Slovenia 65

1:00 to go

Boomers 57
Slovenia 65

Time Out

FYI Angola is #12...just saying

2:00 to go

Boomers 57
Slovenia 60

FIBA has them ranked 20 in the world

2:45 to go

Boomers 55
Slovenia 60

wtf Mills

3:22 to go

Boomers 55
Slovenia 60

Time Out

4:00 to go

Boomers 55
Slovenia 58

5:00 to go

Boomers 51
Slovenia 58

6:00 to go

Boomers 49
Slovenia 58

7:00 to go

Boomers 49
Slovenia 55

8:00 to go

Boomers 47
Slovenia 52

9:00 to go

Boomers 44
Slovenia 52

Giving up way to many open 3's

3 Quarter time

Boomers 42
Slovenia 49

1:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 39
Slovenia 48

2:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 36
Slovenia 46

we're very lucky to not be down by more! Playing like crap!!!!

3:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 34
Slovenia 46

Getting killed with these 3 pointers!

4:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 34
Slovenia 38

5:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 34
Slovenia 37

6:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 34 Slovenia 34

7:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 32 Slovenia 34

8:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 31 Slovenia 34

9:00 to go 3rd quarter

Boomers 29 Slovenia 29

Good sign on the first play. Looks like Brown told them to drive the basketball! Good call Coach!

Ugh. That was a horrible half of basketball. I can't think of anyone who played well other than Marto.

Ingles did some decent stuff early, but then forgot how to dribble in the 2nd quarter.

Whoever is out there wearing number who are you and what have you done with Newley?

As always, Andersen looks good for a bit but then goes and blows certain layups or misses wide open shots.

Mills has not got into the game really.

Wortho has been ok but still committing stupid fouls.

Barlow totally out of synch. Was completely out of position for Mills kick out late in the 2nd qtr. (Mind you, Mills didn't do a very good job of exploiting the fact Brezec was on him out near mid court!)

Ogilvy has lots to learn. Setting poor screens, never in position to be a threat on offence (which is his strength) getting manhandled by Brezec.

Baynes hasn't done a lot, but at least he attacks the rim and scares the crap out of the opposition! Did run the floor nicely for a layup on one break.

Gibson has been ok in his role as a defensive stopper, but otherwise anonymous.

Markovic - nothing to see here really

Hope Brown can straighten the guys out at half time and we see some decent ball in the 2nd half.

p.s. - do these refs know what a moving screen is? Or that breaking into the keyway before the free throw shooter releases is illegal?

My feed from FIBA is working perfectly. No complaints here. Actually I have one. The Boomers offence is terrible!

I have high speed cable broadband and whilst the picture is great, the feed keeps dropping in and out.

Not a great advertisement at all for fibatv.com from my point of view.

Half Time

Boomers 27 Slovenia 29

1:00 to go 2nd quarter

Boomers 27 Slovenia 28

Stream working fine for me

With a jitery feed, you would not be paying good money for the privilege full time for fibatv.com

2:00 to go 2nd quarter

Boomers 25 Slovenia 26

3:00 to go 2nd quarter

Boomers 23 Slovenia 24

4:00 to go 2nd quarter

Boomers 23 Slovenia 23

We look so much better when we're pushing the tempo. Can't let Dragic do the same though. As soon as he gets in the open court he starts looking like he plays for the Suns instead of some scrub Euro team.

5:00 to go 2nd quarter

Boomers 23 Slovenia 19

6:00 to go 2nd quarter

Boomers 21 Slovenia 17

3 Aussie big guys dribbling on perimeter = 3 TO's in last few mins. D'oh think about it guys!

Like Baynes he is one badass looking dude! Would like to see Ogilvy catching the ball somewhere useful instead of setting poor screens on the perimeter too!