Damn saquds...

Damn goorj..

Goorj please take a long walk off a short plank.

Hinder & Helliwell over Schenscher? Ingles I can understand but no Schenscher? Surely unless bogut is playing he has to be our no. 1 centre.

Schenscher C
Andersen PF
MacKinnon SF
Newley (Ryan, Saville etc.) SG
Mee PG

Should that not be our starting 5?

Saqud is the same as a squad, just full of crappy Kings players instead of good players.

this is pathetic, and the squad before i would wat c.j bruton at starting point.

surely u want schench aswell as buget add good hight to the team.

goorj, we better do well or get th hell out coz its the boomers not the sydney.

goorjian is a feverish little ass clown

I struggle to see us beating NZ, hoping to, but looks hard.

Nutwork, yes I agree there..

... as opposed to the awesomeness that is Wade Helliwell !!

&$*@ing Hinder, Smith and Helliwell...... that's garbage... I guess that's what you get for swallowing and being the coaches biatch.

Goorj was lost the plot and I'll second the ass-clown comment.

I can't wait for the day where Goorj is sacked and we look overseas for the Boomers coach.

Hope we get our arses handed to us by the Kiwi's.

Yeah, crap squad. We have FOUR two guards, yet only three bigs! Kendall picked again, suprise, suprise... I just don't how his selection can be justified. We have Mee at the point and Mills has played well, Newley is a lock and Ryan has had some good games, there is just no need for him, yet he still gets picked.

I seriously hope we lose and Goorj gets the sack. But unfortunately I don't think that'll happen and Goorj will be kept around for another few years.

As much as we want to see Goorg gone, Australia cannot afford to lose as the result determines out Olympic involvement

oh well thats what ya get if you are born in SA and dont play for Sydney

Aims gun...

Surely there wouldn't be any more then 1 stupid coach?

Goorj probably bribes them....he did a "Groves"

Goorj totally sucks dog nuts coaching at the international level..... do you even remember that game against Greece??? The fool can't even count time outs, he's lost Australia games. He offensive sets are terrible (live and die by the 3), and his substitutions are beyond belief.

The reason why he's the Australian coach is at the time (and probably still is) the coach with the best NBL record. This doesn't translate to being the best national coach. With Joyce and McLeod as your assistance, good luck.......

He's out of his league on the world stage. His methodology doesn't work at this level.

Rampton and Bradshaw are going to own our ar$es again, just like last time. The Kiwi's are now a veteran poised and polished unit.

I'd like to see BA give Brett Brown in San Antonio a call to see if he's interested. Surely he's learnt a lot on Pop's bench, and also gained experience from all the internationals on the squad.

Is there a possibility that Luke was not picked because of an injury that requires rest like an ankle?

what a joke, cant believe he jewed us again, makes it even more annoying seeing that i am going to the brisbane game, ill b sure to heckle the hell out of goorj

When will they stop Gorj stacking his team with own players.

Crap crap crap - BA at its best again

3 zip to NZ

"3 zip to NZ"

"Crap crap crap - BA at its best again"


"Hope we get our arses handed to us by the Kiwi's."

Well done, nothing like supporting your NATIONAL Team.

Lets see what happens first and then you can bag who you like but until then we all should be behind the team whoever is in it. Then if you are looking for someone to bag have a look at the international players unavailable.

Australia 3 - Zip Mills to star

haha you guys are really pathetic you kow that right !!!

its nice to know you can all mock the selections/coaching/style of game etc...but i dont see any of you in the team or coaching it....once you get to that level and understand it...maybe then you can reel off all of your dislikes and have your tearies about the team and coach

Rampton owning anyone..LOL That's gold.

Shocking amount of Kings players for sure!

So observer are you saying that the only person allowed to criticise the coach is the coach himself because he is the only one at that level?

What a joke!

I am allowed to share my opinion.

I want to see Australia pump NZ, and medal at the Olympics, and I hope Goorj can do it. If not, he is not the man for the job, if so he would have proved us all wrong!

And Observer do you really think Helliwell and Hinder are better options at centre vs NZ than Schenscher?

I don't see anyway possible that Goorj can justify picking Kendall? He picks him based on.....his outstanding form in the NBL? HA!

Against NZL tall timber you need someone like Schensher, NZL bigs will chew up Wade "I'm too soft" Helliwell and Russ "You taste so nice Goorj" Hinder.

We have a team stacked with 2 guards, that really aren't that good.

Starting 5 for the NZL Series would ideally be:

Schenscher C
Andersen PF
MacKinnon SF
Newley SG
Mee PG

Then you have all our 2 guards coming off the bench Saville, Ryan etc coming off the bench.

This may be a stupid question, but why isn't Martin Cattalini's name mentioned for Boomers selection? Is he not interested? I would have thought he'd be a fair choice after a pretty decent last season.

I think I read that he has taken his name out of consideration..

Prob too many boot camps, sorry I mean Boomers camps..

As DB5 said, I'm pretty sure Cat has asked not to be considered because Boomers camps are too hard on the old body.

Sammy Mac has just been named captain of the Boomers for the series against New Zealand.

Good to see Goorj looking outside of his Sydney squad. Probably the best choice.

First of all Goorj has proven himself as the best coach Australia has ever seen so putting him in the top job is a good fit.

People must remember he doesn't have much to work with, as everytime competitions come around there are at least 4 powerful players who cant play. At least he isn't doing a Phil Smyth or Barry Barnes job of having all the players needed for a medal and taking them no where.

He has however lost his way a little bit with the squad selection.

First of all Schenscher has a foot injury and isn't on the squad because he is injured.

Even though I think Ingles has more of a right to be in the squad than Kendall apparently Goorj said he couldn't handle the physical nature of international play just yet (I'll give it to Kendall that he plays hard and doesn't get bothered by physical play).

Halliwell is a dud.

Hinder is a good choice if he plays well which hasn't happened much recently.

I have yet to see anything amazing come from The great (as everyone believes) Newly. He is a ball hog, limited ball skills and with tight defense only produces turnovers (As seen in the NBA summer league and the finals against the Sydney Kings). Everyone should stop pinning Australias bball future on Newly as he is sure to disappoint.

My guess is that Goorj has picked a team that will listen to him. 5 kings, 2 internationals playing with Goorj a number of times now and captained by an old magic boy. He has chosen a squad who understands his coaching and will work together under his strategy of defense wins games.

His squad isn't the best but it could be much worse.

P.S Anstey is a selfish weak excuse for an Australian. Claiming injury when he has none to opt out of the national side. Also wanting the NBL to adopt european (no fouls bball) rules yet he is the one that costantly complains. Disgraceful. He should be playing for Australia in this series!!!!! Lift Anstey Lift.

Smyth's error was going with one PG too few, and likely leaving Rillie out due to a personality clash or whatever. He didn't have much to work with - more or less the previous Boomers squad retired en masse or became unavailable (Heal, etc).

I don't dislike Goorjian, but if you want to talk about having the horses and not getting it done, look no further than the last WCs, right?

First of all Schenscher has a foot injury and isn't on the squad because he is injured.

Hinder is a good choice if he plays well which hasn't happened much recently.

Thanks Isaac, you actually sound like you know basketball. I had to write a few things after reading some of the posts from other people, I hope people like yourself post more often.

Schenscher: OK Fair enough, I did not know that schenscher was injury free now. I knew that he did his ankle in training before their tour but thought he was still injured.

Hinder: I watched every Sydney Kings game I could last year and even Hinder said himself in his interview after their win in the finals vs Townsville; something that went along the lines of, "I haven't been performing like I feel I can and I feel I have been letting the team down, I finally pulled my finger out".

Also, I may be wrong but I remember that Smyth still had a bunch of good players on his roster, however he sat them all on the bench and ran Maher and Catalini (who by the way is a notorious ball hog who doesn't play defense and has a bad attitude). He also made poor decisions in final minutes and ran an offennsive set with them that was confusing and stressful to the players. 2 players after Smyths final match as boomers coach said they would never play under him again.

Also Goorj's boomers last WC were missing Neilson, Anstey, Saville, Schenscher, Anderson and others and the team was said to be "the worst Australia had ever produced" as written in an article in the age. He did well with what he had. Although I will say there were a few coaching decisions I couldn't understand.

And very interesting that Anstey isn't injured enough to be playing with the tigers in that pre-season match and scoring 18 points.

Smyth didn't have that many great players actually. This was the team that lost to NZ for example: Maher, McGregor, Saville, Egan, McDonald, Nielsen, Melmeth, Dench, Moore, Knight.

A fair swag had retired just after the Olympics or were injured or otherwise unavailable.

That was my point regarding Hinder. He had a very average season, but then was one of the Kings best performers in the finals and has continued to do well for the Boomers from all accounts.

Kendall should not be in that team. They have point covered by Mee, Mills and Ryan. They have shooting guard covered by Newley, Smith and Ryan. Kendall does not have the future at this level that Ingles does and Joe should be getting experience and opportunities now, especially as he brings something quite different to the side.

And FWIW, I do post fairly often - more than anyone else on this site!

Agreed on the Kendall choice. Joe should have been there.

You do post often, I was only hoping that more people with a bit of basketball knowledge would post. Which I was saying you seem to have.

Hinder only came good in the finals for 2-3 games, and I didn't hear much of him from their tour. I agree with his choice in the side if he can lift his game. Which is what I was saying.

Smyth sat Smith, McDonald, Grace, Saville and other key players on the bench for too long to run his 6ers with an offensive set that didn't iclude Anstey or Neilson in scoring.

And this is my first time posting but I had to do it after reading some of the comments posted above.

Welcome to the site then, good to have you aboard - if you have any suggestions about what you'd like to see more of in the way of topics, etc, hit the Contact Hoops link at the very top of the page and that will come directly to me.