Hoops

Lithuania vs Australia: 2014 World Cup

Lithuania are referred to as a "powerhouse of International basketball" and rightly so, they have established themselves amongst the best over the past 12 -15 years.

Irrespective of where the Boomers end up, the experience will be valuable for the younger players who walked off the court knowing they just beat one of the best teams in the world.

The next generation of Boomers need to experience success like last night, and continue to back it up if they are to develop their own "powerhouse" reputation in the future. Skill gets you so far, self belief makes all the difference.

Further to my earlier comment, some forums/media content I have read from the USA suggests the team better come to play against AUS or LTH.

Hence, I think the Boomers are well respected. The general feeling I see from USA is that they know they have a beatable team and if they go to sleep one game, it could be all over red rover(surprising given they are always super confident).

I am a Kiwi. You guys are undervaluing your team. I truly believe you are one of the few teams at this tournament with balance at each position (bar maybe a traditional SG somewhat). I do believe the Boomers would be very competitive against the USA.

Re: the (always present) Bogut issue. Get over it. Baynes is here and he is probably doing just as well if not better than what Bogut would be doing.

Not sure that we would be too worried about who we will meet up with in the round of 16. We would start favourite against all of them, except perhaps Turkey (who are having a poor tournament).

Of course any of those teams could beat us on any given night. We dropped a game to Finland in the lead up, but we erased that with two other convincing wins.

That quarter final matchup will be key, but even if we tank to come third, we will probably end up facing Slovenia or Lithuania again, which we are no guarantee to win.

Ariel 98, yes you are correct.

Regardless of which tie breaker is used, we can't pass both of them unless Slovenia loses to Angola.

Great win by Australia, the first half was the best half I have seen by them in a long time.

Just a couple of questions which I would like opinions on.

I love Delly but it seems he has trouble creating anything when he goes left. Is this a genuine issue or just a minor blip?

When Jawai came on he made a positive difference but seemed to reluctant to look for his own shot. A couple of times he seemed to have a mismatch but instead of trying a move he simply kicked it back out. Again is this a genuine issue or just something from lack of confidence/playing time?

Looking forward to seeing Motum, Bairstow etc put up some points in next game or two.

Call me cray cray but if the Boomers did happen to have to front up to the USA in the Quarters, I think it would be a lot closer than people expect. I would pick an 8-12 point margin in all honestly, maybe 15

Beating the USA in the quarter finals will give us a very favourable standing for the semis! (We won't have to play Spain to the GF!)

http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/FIBA/ruleRegu/p/openNodeIDs/897/selNodeID/897/baskOffiRule.html

Cobra: Section D of FIBA's official rules 2014 disagrees with you. It's goal difference, not goal percentage.


"D.1.3
If 2 or more teams have the same win-loss record of all games in the group, the game(s) between these 2 or more teams shall decide on the classification. If the 2 or more teams have the same win-loss record of the games between them, further criteria will be applied in the following order:
* Higher goal difference in the games between them
* Higher number of goals scored in the games between them
* Higher goal difference of all games in the group
* Higher number of goals scored in all games in the group
If these criteria still cannot decide, a draw shall decide on the classification."

sorry, we can get past Slovenia in a 3 way tie, but Lithuania will pass us as a result.

In other words, let's cheer on Angola!

Yeah Harry Balls, we can only finish 1st if Slovenia lose to Angola and then Lithuania beat them. If we end up in a tie with Slovenia (2 way or 3 way tie), we can't get past them.

It is goal percentage against the teams you are tied with that will split the 3 teams, as it would be 1-1 for all 3 of us.

Lithuania aren't going to throw the Slovenia game, they can still get 1st. The higher the score is, the more they need to win by because it is goal percentage, not For and Against.

Best example would be the 2010 World Championships when China finished on 1-4 but qualified 4th due to the tiebreaker with Puerto Rico and Ivory Coast:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIBA_World_Championship_Group_C

Disclaimer: yes I am a massive Delly fan. I'm not saying he's looking awesome, but its also understandable.

I imagine Delly hit the rookie wall a while ago. He's played 72 NBA games, 5 summer league games, the 9 warm up games, and now 3 world champs games since last November. Its his first year as a pro, and its worn him down.

He's also being given a massive workload for the Boomers. He gets the toughest defensive assignment on the perimeter. Even when we are leading big he gets subbed back in because the rest of our guards have been so shaky advancing the ball up the court and initiating the offense (its one of the other reasons we're missing Patty). let's face it, if its not Delly or Ingles starting the offense we look significantly worse. I'm not surprised his legs look gone when it comes to looking for his own offense.

Anon #491410: Which is why I followed up my objection to throwing games with an alternative tournament seeding method that would not reward throwing games.

^that was me

I hate all this talk of "intentionally dropping" a game. I don't care how "smart" it is. When you pull on the singlet and represent your country you should be playing to win.

They should print out a bracket and let the teams with the best results choose first for which position in that bracket they play. Top team (points and differential) takes the top slot. 2nd best team will presumably choose the top slot that means they won't play the top team until the final. If teams are all scared of one particular team then they should play hard every game so have they have the best chance of avoiding that team for longer. Gives every team incentive to play hard in every pool game.

Recap of the game now up on PnR thanks to Craig Rayner:

2014 FIBA World Cup: Boomers take down Lithuanian giants

Australia has secured a major victory in their 2014 FIBA World Cup campaign defeating the much fancied Lithuania 82-75 in Group D. The Boomers were able to put together easily their best performance on both ends of the floor for the entire match and managed to withstand various runs by the Lithuanians prevailing on the back of 18 points from Joe Ingles.

Oops, I mean Slovenia losing their next match. Lithuania's next match doesn't mean anything to us.

Arrrgh! Slept through my alarm and missed the game! What a time to do that?!!!

Wow - what a win! Go Boomers!

If Australia beat Mexico and Angola, which they should, and Slovenia and Lithuania both finish at 4-1 with us, we will finish 2nd regardless of how much Lithuania wins by. Which is a shame, because I would have liked to watch their game with my fingers crossed that Lithuania win by x number of points.

Our differential against both of them is -3, Slovenia is currently +10 and Lithuania is currently -7. If we belted Lithuania a bit more or got closer to Slovenia, we could have been in the running for 1st. Our fadeout against Slovenia is coming back to haunt us.

Maybe we can hope that there is an upset somewhere along the line (Slovenia or Lithuania lose their next match). That way 1st is still in reach.

INGLES YOU ARE C-L-U-T-C-H!!!

I'm just loving Lemanis's vision of Australian basketball coming to fruition. Possibly the best game I've ever watched.

WOW . What a first half. Wasn't expecting a 19 pt lead in our favour at the half .

Call the fire dept .....We are officially on fire

Yep ...time for Outback Hack

C'mon Gibbo - tee off

We are getting value for our fouls too.

Just need Della & Dr Brock to start dropping the treys

He is a role player ....Baynes need to keep it rolling

They just have to go for it ....it's a thing of beauty at the moment.

30+ point 1st qtr!

**** yeah!

Done

Recap of Group D proceeding so far plus a preview of tonight's big game.

2014 FIBA World Cup: Group D is still anyone’s ball game

We need to defend the PnR better, and generally play better team D.

Thinking we may even need to mix it up more frequently at the defensive end to disrupt Lithuania as much as possible.