Hoops

Boti's Boomers post-mortem

Up until the fall of the Soviet Union (and with the obvious exception of LA) Olympic Gymnastics was a beautiful joke.

Aside from the horror of giving young girls androgenetic drugs, the simple fact was that competitors from outside the Warsaw Pact were crucified by the judges.

I wonder if Boti is on the money with his comments about the Europhile refs?

The crazy thing is that half our players play in Europe, but that doesn't seem to effect the apparent bias.

Maybe we should change our uniforms to Red & White, and put "Von" in front of the Players names?

Yeah I hate it how he always does that. He has no credibility as a writer if he doesn't have the balls to call it for what it was.

Why does he insist on "alleging" that the Boomers tanked in the last tournament? There is no question they did. Denying the obvious is ridiculous.

I think he looks like he's really lost a step as well. Doesn't have much elevation left at all, when he should theoretically still be on the tail end of his athletic prime.

I thought that too because he did seem 'off' all tournament like he didn't know what he was doing.

I must correct myself for some reason I thought Ingles was 31 he's only 28, nearly 29 so not really past it at all and probably still in contention for the next Olympics.

He's been around forever I can still remember him playing for the new South Dragons team in '06!

Personally, I wondered if the fact that Jingles new he had just left his wife over the other side of the world, with twins, the first children for them both, effected his game?

I know its the olympics but surely that must have been on his mind.

the "Tanking" - Its been there almost forever.

in the 1980 moscow olympics , the only result that would stop the Boomers advancing to the crossover games for the top 8, and which would ensure that Italy and cuba both went through to the group crossovers, was if in the last game one of them ( i think it was cuba ?) had to win by exactly 7 points, puting Oz 3rd by 0.015% in the third tie calculations - amazingly and that is what happened - no "investigation" by the "lords of the ring" then.

They actually beat italy, who got a silver medal at the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_at_the_1980_Summer_Olympics

Baynes just has terrible hands. I'm not sure if they're made of stone or just tiny for his size. The amount of rebounds he gets a hand to but then doesn't secure is just mind boggling, and he is just awful at finishing around the rim with anything but a dunk.

@ME re: Ingles not shooting

It hurts your team when you aren't going to shoot it ever AND the defence knows it. Even on his baseline drives, you know he's no threat to finish at the rim, he's going to be looking for that long bounce pass across the baseline to a shooter in the opposite corner as his first and only option. Once you scout that there's no coming back from it.

I felt Ingles was very good, his role has changed a lot since London, and he seemed to be very composed the majority of the time. He isnt the guy who will get you 30, nor would the Boomers be all that successful if he was, he is a bit of a conductor of the offense and making the right play. He isnt past it.

As for Baynes, he could be a stud, he plays with passion and really cares, but he is like a bull in a china shop sometimes and has minimal touch around the hoop if its not a dunk it could be anything!

Ingles played his role and played it well. He didn't take a lot of shots because that isn't his role on the team. I can name 6-7 guys who I'd prefer to shoot before him.

As for Baynes, I do agree. He can be extremely frustrating to watch play.

And as for the tanking being why we got some poor calls, perhaps, but why do Euro teams like Lithuania always get away with it? It's to the point where if Lithuania needs to lose a game for a favorable crossover you can bet money on the loss.

Nice to see Boti repeating most of what I've said ;)

In truth though, that controversy helped Australia stuff itself up in Spain two years ago, leading Turkey 64-59 in their Round of 16 KO match with 62 seconds remaining.

The last minute belonged to Turkey's Emir Preldzic when he first buried an unbelievable 3-pointer with 48 seconds left. The Boomers then committed a shot-clock violation and Preldzic hit the shot of the tournament, a contested three with five seconds left for a 65-64 lead.

Five seconds left. Sound familiar?

Australia went to Joe Ingles for the final possession but he lost control of the ball as time expired.

Fast-forward two years to Rio and with 5.4 seconds left, once again Australia turns over its final possession and, once again, doesn’t even get a shot up to pinch the game back.

The single criticism I would level at this Boomers team – our greatest by a mile – is in consecutive major tournaments, it could not get a shot off on its final possession after having a timeout to set it up.

Baynes was solid but had a few confidence issues at times while Matthew Dellavedova (pictured above) was superb for the most part.

Joe Ingles’ offensive confidence was missing early but when he hit the game-breaking 3-pointer in the 11-0 intrapool run home over Serbia, it looked as if he’d overcome it. But he hadn’t, his reluctance to shoot from range brutally exposed by Serbia the second time around.

That lovable larrikin intercepting inbounds passes and hitting step-back threes was very difficult to find in Rio.

I remember last year prior to Mills getting drafted there was a lot of talk about whether he should have stayed at St. Marys for one more year.

In hindsight he may have been better off staying in college for a couple of reasons:

1. St. Marys ended up playing in the NCAA tournament this year - which would have given him even more exposure (although this could also have impacted negatively on his stock if he had a bad tournament with lots of porr decisions and turnovers)

2. The PG's drafted in the first round in 2010 were Wall, Bledsoe and Vasquez and that's it. Compared to his draft in 2009 where he was up against Rubio, Flynn, Curry, Jennings (All top 10), Holiday, Lawson, Teague, Maynor, Collison and Beaubois (All first round).

So assuming he had stayed at St. Marys and had a solid season do you think he would have secured a first round spot and guaranteed contract in the 2010 draft?