Final Australian Boomers Team - Sino-Australia Challenge

Angus Brandt - Oregon State University (USA)
Cameron Gliddon – Cairns Taipans (NBL)
Hugh Greenwood – University of New Mexico (USA)
Tom Jervis – Perth Wildcats (NBL)
Ben Madgen – Sydney Kings (NBL)
Rhys Martin – Wollongong Hawks (NBL)
Jack McVeigh – BA Centre of Excellence (SEABL)
Brock Motum – Bologna (Italy)
Luke Nevill – Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan)
Clint Steindl – Cairns Taipans (NBL)
Lucas Walker – Melbourne United (NBL)
Mark Worthington – Melbourne United (NBL)

Who of these players are in our best 12?

"Who of these players are in our best 12?"
Only Motum imo. Greenwood, Gliddon and Jack McVeigh stand a chance at making future full strength teams.

Motum only real chance of making a worlds team.
McVeigh and Greenwood future worlds teams.

Will be good to see how motum has progessed since college.

Game 1 is on Thursday night ABC2 10:30pm

No Drmic?

Is McVeigh the one that looks like a girl in the picture on NBL site?

Thunder Jam, I think McVeigh is far right and the long hair might be Greenwood (Google Images search for Hugh Greenwood).

You could even say it's a C team with only a few of best 24 playing. China will no doubt send a similar team. At least we have some good size upfront.

id say it would be the case of seeing what some of these younger guys have got, a C team for me also, i spose Lemanis already knows what the A/B team guys can do, so may aswell test out a few extras to see if any can push towards the A/B team.

Looking forward to seeing what Greenwood's got. He does everything for New Mexico to get the win. Hopefully he takes that next step and starts becoming a consistent scorer.

I'm starting to wonder if we will ever see Jawai in green and gold again. I sure hope I'm wrong.

Yeah Steven I agree, would be great to see Jawai play for the boomers.Never seem to have here much about him though.

I understand he's training in Australia ATM, but may not be ready to play. hopefullly he can play for the Worlds squad though

Can't beleive people still think Wortho is in our best 12! Overated at NBL level imo, Give the young fellas a go!

No Damian Martin?

Team PnR's Travis Reid takes a look at the Boomers team:

2014 Sino-Australia Challenge: Introducing the Boomers

Think Greenwood is overhyped a little.

Great player to have as he can do a bit of everything and plays to win.

I am just not sure he has a particular strength or a go to skill that will get his game to the next level.

Drmic on the other hand is going to be a beast as he is a flat out scorer


Why no D.Martin? And who are the Boomers going to take as their 3rd PG. Should they go with someone like Madgen or Gibson?.

A WC team like:

Mills/Exum
Dellavedova/Goulding/Madgen
Ingles/Newley
Andersen/Bairstow/Jawai
Baynes/Maric

Steven, Jawai has been training/rehabbing at the BA CoE under the watchful eye of Lemanis. He also trained with this squad in Perth, so I would say his chances of playing at the World Cup are quite good.

Vart, that's great when healthy he would make best 12.

Vart that's great news Re: Jawai, did you see or hear how Jawai was playing with the squad in Perth, did he look impressive or is he still a way off from being ready to play?

How lovely. FTA coverage and we have a C grade team playing.

Steven - Yeah, I agree about Jawai. He brings an X-factor to the bigs that we haven't ever had before. As far as being the in the best 12, I think he will definitely be there if Bogut doesn't play. If Bogut does play, will Lemanis take Bogut, Baynes, Andersen, Bairstow and Jawai? That may make us a bit top heavy. For mine, Bogut, Baynes and Bairstow are automatic. Is Jawai ahead of Andersen? I'm not sure, I guess it will depend of the game style Lemanis wants to play.

Lance_Uppercut - I didn't personally see anything from the camp. As always, BA totally misses the ball with Boomers training camps. They really need to lift in that area. There should be daily video highlights and interviews. It would also be nice to hear some insights from Lemanis on his plans, what he is looking for, and some reasoning behind the selections. BA have done an awesome job covering the AJC's in recent times, I'd like to see that level of coverage for the Boomers in future, given that they are the basketball flagship in this country. Anyway, rant over! Back to Jawai. I would presume that as he wasn't an 'official' member of this squad, he is not ready to play yet. Given the size of the Chinese team, Lemanis certainly would have liked to include him if he was game ready.

Thanks for response Vart

@Vart, I agree BA needs to adopt more of a proactive approach to their media platform if we are going to generate interest in the public eye.

Footy, rugby and soccer don't need to chase it as much as basketball does, but if we can self generate the media first, it may have a flow on effect.

How lovely. FTA coverage and we have a C grade team playing.

BA totally misses the ball with Boomers training camps. They really need to lift in that area. There should be daily video highlights and interviews. It would also be nice to hear some insights from Lemanis on his plans, what he is looking for, and some reasoning behind the selections.

Wookiee - BA actually have a terrific digital guy in Jardian Ormsby. He is totally across social media and video production. BA just need to give him more budget to let him do his thing.

As far as the Sino-Aus games, yeah, they will definitely be entertaining. I'd be much more excited if Damian Martin and Chris Goulding were playing though. They would have been the starting backcourt, as both are in serious contention to go to the World Cup. Nonetheless, it's always good to see how the young guys have developed, especially those coming back from Europe and college who we don't get to see a whole lot of.

Vart - oh totally, love JO's work when he's given the chance, but like you said, it needs to come from the people who make the decisions... PC gets stuff done as he's there and obviously there's been the decision to give a bit more exposure to the NBL, but BA has taken the lazy approach that it will just happen and no extra effort needs to be made... A shame when you've got someone like Jardian ready willing and able...

I'm surprised anyone is still suggesting Wortho has a shot at our World's team. I would be shocked if he makes it. He's well past his best and I don't understand why he is taking up a roster spot on this team which is all about developing fringe Boomers.

Looking forward to seeing who performs better out of Gliddon and Madgen. I think those two could end up fighting it out with Goulding for the specialist shooter role behind Mills, Delly and Exum.

Greenwood should get a decent crack in this series as well, with Rhys Martin the only other true PG on the team.

Also keen to see how Motum and Steindl go. Lots of people have talked up Motum and I have still seen virtually nothing of his play to this point. Steindl has an intriguing combo of length and 3pt shooting that could give him a look in at Boomers level down the track.

Thanks for posting the Travis Reid article LC. Its a good run-down of the roster with some interesting tidbits I didn't know before.

"Looking forward to seeing who performs better out of Gliddon and Madgen. I think those two could end up fighting it out with Goulding for the specialist shooter role behind Mills, Delly and Exum."

Goulding well ahead IMO. Madgen would be great to have as well. i.e. Our five guards could be Mills, Delly, Exum, Goulding and Madgen.

That is some serious shooting ability there.

I wouldn't want Gibson.

I think we have enough ball-handling.

But, I would take Martin purely because of defence.

And if your talking about Gliddon in contention, it is almost criminal not to consider Drmic.

Drmic should be in contention.

Agreed that Goulding is ahead of Gliddon/ Madgen on the strength of his club performances over the last year. He still needs to put the runs on the board as a Boomer though, before I'd completely count out Gliddon/ Madgen.

I'd kind of counted out Drmic because statistically he seemed to regress this past season and I haven't heard anything positive about him in awhile. Would've been quite happy to see him in there at the expense of Worthington, but I guess Lemanis didn't see enough from Drmic in camp to put him in?

I wouldn't put Martin in as I think his lack of speed was exposed a few years back at the international level. I also don't think he can cause opponents as much trouble at the next level, because the refs just won't allow him to play D as aggressively as they do in the NBL.

Madgen isn't quick or athletic enough for his position at international level. If you can get him an open shot every time he touches the ball then maybe. Goulding should be basically a lock.

Goulding a lock = AGREED.

Madgen could park in the corner, but yes defensively there would be issues.

Only issue with the Boomers WC team is that there is no real athletic, stretch 4 man.

Teams like the USA have ran Lebron, Anthony at the 4 spot and used it to great advantage.

It would be nice for you guys if Simmons was a little older and a bit further along. (But I know that the future will be bright and he will be around a while with Exum).

Alot has changed in 12 months. Goulding and Bairstow have bolted in contention. Their rise has probably come at the expense of Madgen and Motum imo.
Like many others I don't see Worthington in the final 12 he would be there in a limited bench role if they're going to do that they should consider Simmons, I would rather someone with a great future over someone with a great past who has declined over the last year.
At guard I think Mills,Delly,Exum and Goulding are locks, for the 5th guard it depends they could go back up point in D Martin or go for another shooter like Madgen or Drmic.

@Beantown, watching some Eurobasket and the NBA recently I don't really think there is a softenss to the officiating that the authorities want us to believe exists.

It is pretty physical and the hustle is huge out there, that's what Martin thrives on, maybe perceptions are not quite what they seem?

Bear, I'm going on what I saw of Martin a few years back when he couldn't get into the game at all for the Boomers. He wasn't able to put any ball pressure on or get any of his trademark strips under the basket. Without his pest factor on D he was just a below avg shooter who other teams could sag off. I don't know for sure how the refs will call the next Worlds but past observations lead me to believe they won't give a player like Martin much lee-way. (Maric had similar problems with the refs I thought)

Drmic did not regress - he was averaging 18ppg+ before he suffered a foot injury and he played out the season hurt hence why his scoring average dipped.

I would not be counting him out just yet, although he has to be able to outshine some pretty decent competition.