They actually played their bench for almost the entire second half in that game!

Slovenia played half the game with the bench and won by six, Australia played the whole game with their bench and lost by eight.

@Paul: bench or no bench, that was a clear, blatant dive by Australia. Their fourth quarter offense consisted of little more than throwing lazy, easily-interceptable alley oop and lob passes and contested threes.

Whether you agree with throwing the game or not, it's pretty hard to argue that they just let the bench play and lost it honest that way.

They let the bench play AND took a dive.

The result was nothing new at a World Champs or Olympics. Been done before plenty of times by Euro teams.

Lithuania came from behind to defeat Slovenia and do exactly what the Boomers wanted!

Group D standings are like this:
1. Lithuania
2. Slovenia
3. Australia
4. Mexico

The Tanking Worked !!!!

Funny thing is that if Slovenia were in the same position, they would have done exactly the same thing.

Yep - Slovenia would have done the same thing. Any Euro team would have done the same thing.

If Kiwi's can beat Lithuania and Australia can take care of Turkey, Australia and NZ scheduled to meet in the quarter finals!

They were in the same spot last game vs angola

FIFA fixed this years ago by playing both games at the same time.

Even under 14's clubs does this.

No question basketball is a beautiful sport. But, a WC tournament a cutthroat business and for the teams with aspirations and designs on the KO stages the importance of group games is variable. Dragic and that coach need to grow／harden up. And watching the LIT VS SLV game, I could say that i have suspicions that Slovenia threw it on purpose - that final qtr looked VERY suspect to me.

it is not match fixin !!??? unless someone in the team benefited financially by placing a bet and threw the game....

Title is inappropriate. Played bench who just played rubbish in last 1/4 to gain potential advantage in a draw where teams that shouldn't be in the finals run can sneak through… Europeans do it all the time and NBA and every other comp at some point will rest teams.

Basketball is a beautiful sport, there is no room for fixing the game like today Australia vs Angola!! @FIBA should do something about that!

Poor choice of words by someone who should know better than to stir the pot like this. Agree that Euro teams have done this plenty of times before, it isn't an Aussie invention like he pretends it to be and it isn't technically match fixing either, that is a slanderous comment really...

I'm applauding Slovenia's apparent last-quarter spitetank as retribution. Two points?

(Spitetank should totally be a word)

Spitetank! LOL!

Bo, That made my morning.

Game wasn't fixed, it was thrown. So be it.

Slovenia could've kept their desired top spot by, you know, scoring more than two points in the last quarter...

Goran Dragic (paraphrase) - "I am frustrated that Lithuana will now play to win instead of tanking... sorry 'match fixing', against my team later today. This also means that I won't get an extra rest day like I was hoping for."

I'm against what Australia did, but seriously, Dragic is being an over-inflammatory tool.

Eurobasket 2013

http://www.eurobasket2013.org/en/default.asp?cid={221A6A0E-D8D6-4016-B84F-1CC6CF17A09F}&compID={D166E39E-2323-4863-B229-76357A926FA2}&season=2013&roundID=8722&gameID=8731-F-9-3

Slovenia, playing in a dead rubber (playing in the last game and had a losing tie-breaker against Croatia) against Finland are "shock" 16 point losers. One Goran Dragic plays just 5 minutes. The smaller Finnish team win the boards, and make 17 of 32 threes... they shot 54 of 194 (~28%) from deep for the rest of the tournament.

Spitetank

Spithood

Ah, the good old days Kent. :)

Slovenia were only pissed because they were forced to beat Lithuania instead of taking it easy and keeping first spot. They weren't good enough to beat Lithuania on the day like Australia were, so suck it I say!

Australia scored 41 in the second half to lose. Slovenia scored 20 to lose.
Who tanked? ;)

This Sports Illustrated fellow took the trouble of breaking down the game tape and giffifying it:

http://www.si.com/nba/2014/09/04/australia-angola-tanking-goran-dragic-fiba-world-cup?xid=si_nba&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

(I need someone to teach me how to href properly - I can't seem to do it anymore!)

FWIW in his first line he calls Australia an 'also-ran' which I think is a bit harsh, particularly if they make it through to the medal round.

Interesting how much coverage this has received internationally.

I think it's gained more coverage than past tank-jobs because Australia did a really poor job of hiding it... they actually threw the game rather than just resting key guys and letting a depleted squad lose. Our bench would have ran through Angola if they wanted to (which I guess is the problem...our worst five guys would have beaten them, so you can't really throw this game without engaging in some foul play).

At the end of the day this is FIBA's fault for having such a stupid system that doesn't incentivise winning these games, so you can't really blame us .

I don't see why its so reprehensible considering it was widely accepted Lithuania would tank against Slovenia otherwise. Gorans just pissed it meant the game would be real, rather than phoned in. Guess your top 4 hopes are done hey Slovenia?

The final line of the SI article is gold. After questioning if tanking tactics "stain the credibility of the entire event"

"Those questions will linger until the Round of 16 opens in Spain on Saturday"

Essentially admitting that this issue prompts short term outrage but...meh, what are you gonna do?

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/09/04/goran-dragic-calls-out-australia-for-fixing-game-against-angola-to-avoid-usa-down-line/

Probably the most balanced article I've seen. It opens and closes with the following two sections.

"Goran Dragic is right — Australia rested key guys to "fix" their game Thursday against Angola and lose. But really, Dragic is pissed because Australia just put his Slovenian team in a bind.

Welcome to FIBA, Goran."


"Dragic is right, Australia tanked.

Welcome to FIBA, where it is common and, by system, almost encouraged."

Just a thought, maybe it is a thread on its own, but what about the cause of all this being the draw and the system, not so much the teams who by default are by products or symptoms, if you will, of this cause.

Could the draw and the whole set up of the draw improve to alleviate this issue?

My proposal would be to look at the Soccer WC draw and how they pool 4 teams into groups where the top two go through to the knock out rounds.

Would something like this work for the hoops WC, I am sure it has been thought of but it now seems to be a bigger issue than it should, so perhaps this is a way out of the wilderness...

If you don't think the guys on the court wanted to win, simple, you're a fucking loser. You're basically questioning every players integrity?

I'm questioning why our second unit wasn't good enough to beat Angola, I think it's because they aren't that good to begin with.

Bear, Fiba is introducing a 32-team format at the 2019 World Cup: 8 pools of 4 teams where the top 2 teams from each pool advance, similar to the Fifa World Cup. Tanking should, if nothing else, become less prevalent in this instance.

http://espn.go.com/olympics/basketball/story/_/id/8619674/fiba-pushes-2020-olympic-qualifier-world-cup-basketball-back-2019

So you are questioning their integrity? Why are you still a fan?

So much white noise here, yes well then we shall see how it goes at that tournament I guess?

@Isaac, I think there could be more options with a 4 team pool system, even if the top two go into a secondary pool against the cross pool bottom two for another round before deciding on an overall win/loss system prior to knock out games...

The more random and complex the initial pool games the less attractive it should be to even contemplate losing a game during the event.

I know it can't be totally avoided, but we seem to be upset at the symptoms, not the cause of the issue!

'343, have you re-watched the replay of the latter stages of the game?

Watch from the 50ish second mark especially. They are just letting them past:



Of course Lemanis is saying they were trying but that's not trying.

Trying to understand such action may be easier if put into perspective. I have thought about these scenarios.

1. Aus lose and give Lith incentive to go top, Lith and Aus avoid US early in finals, Slov miss out ending up second.

2. Aus win and give Lith no incentive so they lose and go third with Slov first, they avoid US and we end up second.

Hmmm, given the choice it may in fact be that we just got in before Lith did, we took one for them if you like...

Just sayin'