Hoops

Opals-Japan Series

Hopefully Cambage has learnt from her mistake and can comeback better for the experience.Who the hell is giving her advice? If she had have taken BA to court and won(most unlikely) BJ would have left her on the bench - where she belongs until she shows 100% committment. I agree that we can win silver at Rio - so much much talent to come back into the team and also so much talent coming thru the Junior teams - talent pool is awesome - go OPALS.

You really think Lavey is going to be in front of Leilani & Erin in the rotation?

Why is Rio a huge worry right now?
I don't see it that way at all. Despite the issues at the 1 & 2, which we have seen coming for years, I still think we're as good a chance for silver as anyone.

And once again he uses one player 29 mins in the pg spot the other 5 that can play that position don't even accumulate that amount all together, why on earth does he bother!

Lavey burton and Talbot will always get more minutes, Talbot I can understand .......

As far as I'm concerned the "next crop" can wait a year. Within 12 months of the Olympics it's time to assemble the best team possible.

There's already about 10 players not available for this team right now (due to injuries, recovering from injuries, WNBA commitments, music festivals, etc.) and most of them will be in the Rio team if healthy, so to assess players for the small number of remaining spots I don't think we should be casting the net too wide anymore.

"Every box score in the last year?"

Haha... fair call.
I like Nat, but I must admit I don't understand why she is in the Opals, or even the "Opals"

Nice to see Jarry back on the court.

Tough to judge Burton's game just off a boxscore.

I saw a video a while back on the Core Advantage YouTube channel showing Bec just starting rehab mode in the gym. (among other things they mentioned that it was a "messy" tear as opposed to a clean one)
I'd imagine there is a lot of muscle rebuilding and balancing to happen before she'd be anywhere near playing or even doing serious lateral movements, so she's out of the picture for now and I'd be very surprised if she played this calendar year.

If the ACL had never happened I'd happily have her starting in this series against Japan though. I rate her. Very good all round guard.

Isn't Cole injured ATM? I went to the game last night and we were just too big and strong for them. Would only like to have their PG No 12. It was the first time I have seen Lavey play and I thought she was good? Can anyone suggest who would be better than her apart from Erin Phillips?

The series this week is meaningless. The one against NZ in a few weeks is not. It's one we need to win. And even though we still should, we go into it without Jackson, Taylor, Allen, Tolo, Phillips, Francis, Mitchell, Bishop & O'Hea, most of whom are automatic selections for the 'real' Opals team. So it's not like we need so many backup options to be getting international experience. It's nice for them I'm sure, but it would be much better for the Opals team if it more closely resembled its proper lineup.

Secondly, I'm sure you enjoyed seeing some new players but I'm pretty sure that most of those people who bought tickets to #Homecoming would rather see Cambage in action than Burton. It also doesn't look great for BA, who put Liz front & centre of the promotion for the game. They wouldn't like having her make them look silly.

"I'm baffled," four-time Olympic medallist and friend Jackson said. "I've played on that team for 20 years and nobody has ever done that"

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/basketball/lauren-jackson-baffled-by-liz-cambages-opals-snubbing-20150727-gilfiz.html#ixzz3h8u5gimV

Opals win game 1 86-65 in a pretty even performance. Steph Talbot led the way with 20, 9 & 4.
14 players hit the court for Australia, which is kinda weird.

Boxscore:
http://www.fibalivestats.com/matches/48960/13/08/33/51MraNbyjAJVk/

there is strong talk that Storey is out and Rillie is in floating around