Tall Blacks lead both games at the half I believe. Good sign of things to come hopefully. I'm expecting a pretty big NBL season from Corey Webster.

ominous signs

I watched both games.. and was surprised by how good we looked. Turnovers cost us and both games were decided by a few sloppy possessions.

If we had a rim protector (ie. Adams) we would be legit...

I think we will get out of the group stage and will knock off Turkey who have looked abysmal.

For the gamblers out there - UK bookies have the TB's at 6/1 for the win against Turkey!

Got smashed by Greece... Looked good in the first half and were down 2 at HT... Looked like a Wednesday night club team in the second..
Vukona hasn't been great in these warmup games, has been fouling a lot..

Greece are pretty good so no shame in losing.

Each game they have been excellent in the first half and dropped away in the second, although the Greece game was a much bigger drop than two close losses to Slovenia and Lithuania.

Given they've played 11 games in the past 21 days on the road, and had a stomach bug go through most of the team, it's hardly surprising.

They've got Serbia on Thursday and Sunday and then I think they'll benefit from a bit of rest before the WCs.

yeah totally forgot about that bug that they all got, no wonder they're dying in the second half.

Frank in over Horvath.

Fuming.

Vucinic has a personal issue against Horvath. Horvath is clearly a better fit for this team. He smashed it on the boards and was one of TBs leading reboundersin all games despite only playing 15mims.

Disappointed for Horvath. BBNZ have treated him poorly for a while now and i dont understand it. If Vucinic is always going to go with Frank why even bring a guy like Horvath along.

Reading Vucinic's comments, their performances were of a similar level and Frank got the nod as the incumbent who has shown previously what he can produce internationally, ie: more than either of them have shown on this trip so far.

Casey Frank has been prone to the odd brain fart under pressure in the Black singlet so also not entirely happy about this decision either.

Paul, yeah except Vucinic has been saying that for years now. Its like his 'go to' excuse.

And my point is that if he was going to chose the imcumbent why didn't he chose him a month ago.

I agree, could have saved the program a fair bit of cash by not dragging Horvath around the world chasing a spot he was never going to get.
It would seem he was just being treated as insurance in case Frank couldn't get fit with his calf issue.

I thought Horvath looked the better of the two in the past three games.. now we are looking really small..

Any chance Pledger makes a last minute comeback to replace Kenny or Bartlett? They have both looked well out of their depth TBH

Frank is not a rebounder and is heavily perimeter orientated.

Its just not logical to cut the team's best rebounder especially given we are very small as is.

Australian Boomer fans would also be pissed if Lemanis cut their best rebounder for a 6"8 guy who shoots threes.

I agree, we badly needed rebounding and as much size as we could get with Pledger out & Horvath was as close to a genuine 5 man as we were gonna get.

I doubt Pledger is going to risk further injury by rushing back and we aren't lucky enough for it to heal up quickly in time to join the team.

Swan Song for Casey anyways