Australia faced European champions Spain first up early this morning and had a major battle on their hands.

Spain was in front 57-54 with 2:21 left in what was a tight content with little separating the teams all the way. However Gretel Tippett's basket with 1:13 left to play proved the difference, as Spain could'nt score again as the Aussies prevailed 58-57.

Tippett and Roberts (9reb) scored 13 each, whilst Mijovic had 11 points.

Australia next play China in the wee hours of Sunday morning. China won their fist game easily against Argentina.

#698

Jealous Much!

How about we stop being whinging farks and start supporting all Australian girls...

I hope every kid that made this side does well, even for the 30 seconds they play..after all it will be 30 seconds more than I have ever spent in the green and gold...and probably some other posters...

I believe everybody wishes the girls well.
We only hope that they have indeed taken the best team available.
The points and questions made above are valid.

Stayed up to watch girls get beaten by China.
Hopefully they can rally for tomorrows game.

(Mod: Pathetic bitching.)

Obviously you didn't see the State Champs final.

Noone from SA country had good stats. Maybe had more to do with the coaching.

Australia lost to China overnight as outlined by another post, going down 75-92.

Roberts led the Aussies with 14, Tippett had 13 and Blicavs 12 for the Aussies.

They have a 1-1 record and next play against Argentina.

Stop all this "tall poppy syndrome"
Stop bagging kids, should be proud we have 3 SAC kids in Australian side.
Tough loss to China, couldnt sustain for 4 quarters.
Good luck against Argentina

OK as someone suggested I went and had a look at Australian Junior Championship Website.
I actually looked at the last 3 years stats 2008/2009/2010.

Pulled up the list of 20 girls in the squad.
Also looked at the stats on fiba Oceania of the 12 players who played there.

Actually very interesting and probably worth a look.

Grettel T, Tayla R, Lauren N obvious standouts.

Interesting to see ALL AIS girls in the 17 World team. As the AIS is a our major developmental centre it was not surprising I suppose, but looking at recent stats maybe some of these girls were not ready yet. Others appear to be playing well in the here and now.

Vic M have 6 players in the 20 squad and finished 1st in U18.
Qld S have 2 and finished 2nd.
Vic C have 2 and finished 8th.
SAC have 4 and finished 7th?.
All other squad members only 1 in their team.

Of the 12 in the Oceania team only 8 made it into the world team.
The 2 guards (Qld and WA) who didnt make it are a real shock as they both have good stats. The WA girl has done well in Oceania and last 3 years.
The Qld girl apparently had a great U18 tournament, played well in Grand final (wasnt there only going on stats and other thread comments)and is a underage player.
The 2 talls who didnt make it appear to have done ok.
Both Vic players. 1 only played 1 game in Oceania, probably injured?

It is hard sometimes to understand how coaches pick the teams they do.
ALL coaches will pick what they believe will work well and how they play together. No coach wants to be defeated.
The questions maybe that need addressing are:
Does politics play a role in who is picked?
Are the coaches sometimes answerable to the higher?

After all that my final comment will be.
GO AUSSIE!
Do us proud girls and come home with a medal, we are all behind you.

U 17 girls have played their 3rd game and won against Argentina by 20 points.
Puts them 2 wins 1 loss.

All appear to have got reasonable court time.

Grettel Tippett top scored with 21 points.
Tayla Roberts 20 points.

For all of you that know basketball, you need to understand that the electronic stats aren't always correct.

Second, these girls are really giving it their all. They are proud to be here and proud to represent their country and if you were here you would be proud because they play hard and FAIR!!!!!
This is my first time on this site and I agree with the 'tall poppy syndrome' comment. Get over what issues you may have. The coach chose these 12 wonderful young women to represent their country and that is exactly what they are excelling at!!!

Go girls. You wear the green and gold with pride and it shows!

mum

Good win overnight agaisnt Argentina. Next up we face Mali and then Belgium to round off the preliminary group stage. Two wins and we can finish as high as 1st or worst as 2nd in group.

#749 - you raise some interesting points - unfortunately your thorugh analysis has overlooked one of the squad members - Qld Sth had three players in the 20.

AWM - don't think anybody's shown 'issues', just raised some discussion.

The better the girls go the better everybody in Australian basketball looks so I dont think there'll be too many 'death-riding' the girls.

AWM, I dont believe anyone would not wish all girls in the team well for the world tournament, especially our SA girls, it does not alter the discussion bought up about those selected/not selected.

This is a discussion forum, as ankles said, for people to raise their thoughts/objections/feedback etc...hopefully most is kept constructive and not made personal, though this is hard when the discussion seems directed at individuals who some believe not up of their selection.

As much as I support the team, I believe players/coaches etc maybe dissapointed knowing others could have been having the experience of the world tournament.....and yes it comes back to the discussion of selection/bias/politics.

Hopefully all those selected/not selected will grow from the experience and become better/harder players (if given the chance!)

As for stats not being correct. I really hope and doubt this is the case. This is a world tournament and should have experienced personnel in attendance.

Australia thrashed basketball minnows Mali overnight, winning 88-39.

The Aussies had a good spread of scorers with 5 reaching double digits. Roberts led the way with 17 (7/7 FG), Tippett had 16, Blicavs 14, Bunton 13 and Thompson with 10 and 11 rebounds.

The Aussies next face a Belgium team that beat China and Spain but were upset by Argentina. China play European champions Spain in their last game. If the Aussies beat Belgium and Spain beat China, the Aussies will top their group. If China beat Spain and the Aussies beat Belgium, we finish 2nd. If we lose to Belgium, we will finish 3rd in the group.

We have a good chance of being top in our pool.
Need the win against Belgium tonight.

Mali coach not happy with the Australians play.

"Sidiya Oumarou (Mali head coach): I have quite good feelings regarding the game we just produced. We didn't score as much as the other times, but we had better quality. The Australians produced a game at the limit of the rules. Sometimes they weren't very fair play, even though they didn’t need to dig in that aspect of the game."

We actually had 2 unsportsmanlike fouls in the game.

Australia lost to Belgium in their final group game overnight, going down 61-67.

Taylor Roberts led all scorers with 23 points and 14 rebounds and was supported by Gretel Tippett with 16 points and 10 rebounds - both girls racking up double-doubles. However no other Aussies scored in double digits in the loss.

The Aussies shot a better percentage from the field than Belgium but were a woeful 56% from the free throw line (14/25). They also had a 48-27 rebound advantage and could not capitilise as they turned it over 25 times to just 12 for the Belgians.

Australia are scheduled to face France in their quarter final contest. The winner would face either Belgium or Japan in the semi-final.

3rd in their pool and a quarter-final against France may not be a bad outcome IF they can get past France. That would give them a semi-final against Belgium which would seem to be a better option than a possible match-up against the US.

At any tournament you will have players sitting for extedned periods of time (Russ Hinder was famously once told by Goorjian that 'we'll take you but you're not going to get any time'). So the minutes distribution is about what i would have expected.

What worries me is our apparent inability to shut down the three - surely with the size we have inside any tough two is better than being bombed out of games as we now have been twice by China and Belgium.

Some people on this forum need to build a bridge and get over it...

Ankles
Yes we certainly need to adjust better to closing out long shots, but its the ridiculous turnovers and the Free throws that are hurting us more.
Players of this age are inconsistent from the arc, but free throws is unforgivable.

Following the play to pay last night, the travels and passes out of court were at crucial moments, but given the great chance of playing vs Belgium again in a semi not much damage has been done.

I am confident we can reverse that result next time and get into the gold medal game vs Usa.

We have had close results vs. France, but our pool does look deeper than pool A imo.

And I thought bashing U/18 players wasn't allowed! These girls who are trying their guts out are U/17!! I think some of the coaching and game time is questionable, I don't think the selections are. I can't think of another girl in SA better or works harder than these 3, if you can you are probably biaised. We are lucky to have 3 SA girls representing SA.

It appears game plan is to give it to the bigs and forget the rest.Point guards appear to be struggling with minimal assissts and points .The turnovers do not surprise some as ,like others i believe the best 2 point gaurds are back here in Aus.And yes thats just my opinion and not slamming team just an opinion.Only players with licence to shoot are (1 from NSW) and (1 From Vic).Good family history on one and very popular with the coach the other .wow Belgium 37 3 point attempts to aussies 5

I think some of the coaching and game time is questionable, I don't think the selections are. I can't think of another girl in SA better or works harder than these 3, if you can you are probably biaised. We are lucky to have 3 SA girls representing SA.

And here I was thinking it was an Australian team - didn't realise all the players had to come from SA :). Would not your last statement indicate maybe there are better players out there? Just having a dig!

So what was the expectation?.....if losing means under control ,I say Well Done

I don't think anyone Ankles is saying the team should be made up of only SA kids, yes kids; but this is SA Hoops & typically we have a go at our own. Also stats don't tell you everything.
Can we shop bagging the individuals who have been selected because they obviously have development potential & need to get international experience.

Australia play France tonight in order to qualify for the medal rounds...

Aussie Aussie Aussie - as I had hoped I had clearly indicated - I was trying to have a freindly dig at the wording (I know its an SA site, I know their is a bias here towards SA kids, both positive and negative) - obviously didn't come off that way so my apologies.

Unfortunately this thread seems to have split into two camps.

Camp 1 - blind support for the kids who are over there doing their best (no argument from me about the fact that all the girls are doing their best and earned their selection).

Camp 2 - those who see opportunities for improvement or alternative paths (unfortunately there are some in this camp whose alterative path is simply Player X is hopeless! - not necessary or productive) who tend to be derided by the residents of Camp 1 as somehow being 'unpatriotic'.

I've said numerous times before that it is hard to argue with he success of the current Australian system - but I am also a person who believes there are ALWAYS opporuntities for improvements.

I'm involved in this area in basketball and other sports and on a philosphical level - am trying to work out how a sport can do this better.

There are girls in this team (history suggests) whose international career will finish at the end of this tournament. That is not a criticism of those kids, it is not to say there positions are unwarranted, it is not to say that it is a bad thing - as other posters have said, they are many, many Australian singlets ahead of most posters on here. It is ismply the way our pathways work. Roughly 50% of the Gems team which went away last year was not present at the initial gathering of the group when first brought together (after U16's Nationals) - is this simply the way it has to be or is it soemthing which can be improved?

My questions are simple - is there a better way to do this and if so, what is it? AND - if I was coaching there what could be done to improve the team's performance (the tone of some of the posts). Nothing personal against the team, the coaches or the staff. Just some (hopefully) interesting discussion.

Australia lost to France in the quarter final overnight, going down 59-69.

Tippett top-scored for the Aussies with 17 points, Talbot had 10 points, and no other Aussie scored in double-digits.

Australia now play against Japan, with the winner earning the right to play-off for 5th spot.

Yes a top 8 finish is okay.. But for Australian basketball to develop and become a 'powerhouse' internationally, we need to set our expectations higher than a 6th. We have some fantastic young talent coming through, and as seen earlier this year at the Albert Schwietzer Tournament with the Emus, we have the potential to do special things on the international stage. That emus team obviously has been together for quite some time now, but they set the bar high, and suprise suprise look what happened, they achieve high (first gold medal at the Albert Schweitzer Tournament EVER for Australia). Im not saying there is anything wrong with a 5th or 6th, its great considering the fact that basketball is not the number one or even number two preference sport in our country. Im just trying to establish the fact that we need to raise our expectations and not be content with where we are at the moment.

Australia lost by 3 points to Japan overnight, meaning Australia will now play for 7th position against Spain.

Gretel Tippett was a shining light leading all scoers with a massive double-double of 34 points and 16 rebounds to go with 4 assists and 2 blocks. Next best for the Aussies was Blicavs with 19 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists, and Mijovic with 16 points. No other Aussies scored in double figures.

Japan shot Australia down, much like Belgium did, from the perimeter, nailing 13/24 from long range. Australia had a 47-33 rebound avantage but this time were able to limit their turnovers to just 10 for the game.

Australia has pummeled Spain 74-48 to take 7th spot at the inaugural U17 World Championships for women.

Roberts scored a game-high 25 points and had 14 rebounds, and was well supported by Tippett with 14 and Blicavs with 10.

Australia comprehensively won the rebound count 52-21 and this paved the way for the big win to round off the tournament.

Final standings:

1. USA
2. France
3. China
4. Belgium
5. Japan
6. Russia
7. Australia
8. Spain

Chinese player Meng Li was named tournament MVP.

Gretel Tippett was ranked 4th in scoring, with Roberts 7th. Tippett was 7th for rebounding and Roberts 9th. Tippett was 8th for blocked shots, but 5th for turnovers. Tippett tied for 1st with 3 double-doubles, whilst Roberts had 2. Roberts ranked 4th for FG %.

Maybe Lono in his review to BA should let them know his offence revolved around Tippet and Roberts (fair enough), but didnt pick anyone who could shoot the lights out.
Also that he couldnt get girls to guard perimeter which was a standout in games against sides that had a team that could shoot the ball.
Hopefully someone learns from this

Defensive guards will never get selected as points shot is the only stat that seems to get looked at.I congratulate those in the team ,and was wondering if others have players they think were close to selection or should be looked at.IMO the point from QLD sth who was great at last years school nationals and fom looking over many years the guard from SA country.Dont know her name but she might have been Cap.Always played great D over many years at classic and other sturt games

Defensive guards will never get selected as points shot is the only stat that seems to get looked at.I congratulate those in the team ,and was wondering if others have players they think were close to selection or should be looked at.IMO the point from QLD sth who was great at last years school nationals and fom looking over many years the guard from SA country.Dont know her name but she might have been Cap.Always played great D over many years at classic and other sturt games

It will be interesting when the U17 and the U19 girls come together for the next camp for selection to New Zealand!

Any thoughts?

Forget about trying to guess the players! Anybody heard anything about the permanent coach for this group?

Phil Brown was there as an interim measure and I have heard some talk of him getting the gig through to the Worlds but its a big ask for somebody to run teh AIs program (including the upcoming WNBL season), be an Assistant to the Opals (in a World Championship year) AND run the Gems program as well.

Who else is out there?

#166 - you are right about the Oceania appointments but that group tends to run parallel to the World's program. In the past it has been used as both a development tour (many of this year's Gems went there when identified as top age 16's from memory) and also a way to keep perimeter players involved (they may not be part of the core group for the World's but BA wants them to stay involved in some way?).

Good list #167. Would think you can scratch Lono and his assistants (Tomley and Fillipou) from that list - don't know that BA would ask them to back up so quickly (regardless of where they finished).

I've heard a Bairstow whisper and Turton was high on the list for a while. Personally, I think they'd both do an outstanding job (I've had the opportunity to see them both work with teams in tournaments and they are excellent - Bairstow just in front) as would Pitchard although I suspect you can rule him out if he is taking the team to Oceania.

Dont know the Vic guys and its possibly hard to judge with the talent they have at their disposal. Simpson went very close to getting rolled by an under-strength (but Pritchard-coached) SA team at the 20's 2 years ago (with Cambage and 4 other AIS girls in his group) while Pollock (6 Aus squad members) went within a possession of getting rolled by Qld Sth (3)at 18's this year. Do you get style points for winning at Nationals?

Cant see how Dalton could do the job along with the Flames gig. Ditto for Herbert/(team formerly known as Lynx).

So by my reckoning that list is now:
Pollock
Lucas
Simpson
Bairstow
Turton

It is obvious some of you out there have no knowledge of Basketball. Many of you only consider a coach or an athlete for these National Selections once they have won at a National Champs. How ridiculous!