Hoops

BJ opals

I think that has been his philosophy right from the start. His focus has always been on the next wave. I think what bothers people is that a) maybe he has been over-focussed on youngsters and as a result overlooked some players who might not be under 22 but are far from past their best basketball, and b) his idea of who will become the best players down the track might not match other people's opinions.

There is nearly an entire Opals team worth of our best players unavailable for the current Opals tour due to either WNBA commitments or injuries. Those players are for the most part very experienced.
So it makes complete sense to me for this touring Opals B team to consist of mostly youngsters, with a few experienced heads in there just to be leaders and keep things together.

Personally I don't agree with all of his selections but I do agree with his overall approach.

Opals win the first of 3 games vs Italy 77-65
Ebzery the standout.
Boxscore:
http://www.fibalivestats.com/u/FIP/127201/index.html

The second game against Serbia not much better. Aussie team going down 86-78 after conceding a 35 point 3rd quarter. Keeping things in perspective, Brendan described the performances of some of the players as, 'sensational'.

This the same Serbian team defeated 62-53 by Peter Buckle's below strength GB team earlier this month.

Ask your self WHY some chose to 'rest' themselves........it will be interesting to see how many will still be resting

opals have won the bronze at the last olympics and last worlds, with a couple of starters missing from the teams.

I do not think any other coach in this period would have got better results than BJ.

The argument on who should be coach should be performance driven, not personality driven

Anon #529585, you realise that Bec Allen is in the WNBA with the NY Liberty atm, right?
That is the world's toughest competition. If she can survive that, she can certainly survive international competition.

She's young and raw and obviously still has work to do to refine her game if she wants to reach the real upper level, which is no different to most of the college graduates entering that league this season. She's a similar age to them.
These next 4 months will be great for her, and yesterday was a promising start to it.

Like to see where all the turnovers occurred they speak of

I haven't seen a boxscore for game 1 anywhere unfortunately, but thanks to lovewomensbasketball.com I'm pretty sure that the Opals scorers were as follows

Batkovic 10
Talbot 9
Garrick 9
Hodges 8
Lavey 6
Snell 5
Ebzery 2
Blicavs 2
Penaluna 2
Burton 1
Wilson, Kunek -

I agree with anon567 though about BJ and his obsession, poor Lavey, not her fault.
I hope BA take a good look at what he's doing, and not renew his contract he's not be good for Australian womens basketball at., especially up at the institute

Allen is absolutely good enough and has a high ceiling for where she can get to. She's virtually a lock for my Rio Opals 12 already if I was selecting.

Opals went down 54/75 to Serbia,
Joyce commented
What really stood out was that we have to adjust to the physicality that Serbia play with,” he assessed.

“We had a very high turnover rate and if you’re turning the ball over it makes is very difficult to win. The other area that we’ve got to focus on is improving our containment in the defensive end.

“We had a lot of opportunities to make shots. We’ve got to have some scoreboard pressure.”


Hmmmmm

Don't think his daughter plays? But if they do would explain a lot lol

His obsession with Lavey will be his undoing,

We can only hope he goes back to nbl !!!!!!!