Hoops

Junior Tall Blacks beat Australia

Can I ask a 'Stupid' question? Why did White play in the Final?

He was the leading point scorer in the U20 Nationals earlier this year. He was also the leading point scorer for Australia in Fiji?

Just seems strange to me that he didn't play - when the rest of the team went 4/30 from range.

Was he injured? He didn't appear physically injured on the live stream, but hard to tell, might have had some strain?

"Not sure how that is then a wake up call."

Simple. If we want our junior teams playing at the WCs we have to perform better in the qualifiers.

Caporn doesn't like big guys

Colina
Pupavac
Maker
Hank
Dalton


All big guys with much-needed length against NZ who were overlooked for this team and available for selection.

^^the players did not select themselves. And it is not a problem with the program since it'd been obviously working till recently. The coach should be let go since he should be held accountable for this. He almost cost us the qualification two years ago, performed poorly (overstatement) at the World's last year and now this. Putting the absent stars aside, there was (is) still plenty of talent in Australia to win this tournament. Why the coach decided to go with a small line-up that could 'shoot' the ball, it is only clear to him. When a team shoots 4/30 for 3 and gets out-rebounded by 20, it says something about the coach. Very static offense, guards who don't crash the boards but are trigger happy, only one real tall, well - not really surprised with the outcome.

Well done Kiwis, you deserved it as you played the best when it counted.

Waardenberg is a genuine 200 + cm international player - has the moves

Even with players missing, it's definitely worth asking questions about our program. For example, should players from the 'top' scholarship program in the country be more comfortable handling the with both hands, or against pressure?

That said JTBs thoroughly deserved the win.

Australia
W.Mcdowell-White(Fresno state)
M.Maker
M.Kiir (Vcu)
H.Froling (smu)
D.Gak (Miami)
I.Humphries (Kentucky)
J.Epperson?
+ a few guards

New Zealand
T.Wynnard (Kentucky)

That's three years in a row now that it has been a close game in the underage qualifiers - last year's U16 final was a belter - this time the Kiwis finally got over the line.

They've got some serious talent and it's a nice wake-up call for our program.

Talented talls that should read

Sometimes you can make all the changes you want, but if you shoot poorly you can lose to anyone. Taking nothing away from NZ, they deserved it and good luck to them but we left some talented talks out that could have posed more of a threat and provided much needed length on defence. It is what it is I guess!

We were a buzzer beater from DJ away from this happening last time around. Do you think this will cause BA etc to review our systems and make changes?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9myrrEqeKkQ[/youtube]