Absolutely, if he makes the closing ceremony without being ripped to shreds and sacked then I'd be surprised.

I understand about Bishop due to the blood clots but Batkovic should have started. Not sure why Jenna O'Hea wasn't in the squad either.

Good luck to Nat Burton on her post international career, may you never see another national training camp again.

Thank you so much Penny, you've been so amazing and incredibly under-rated and deserve to be in our top 4 women's players ever (Jackson, Timms and Sporn to keep her company)

Penny well clear of Sporn and ahead of Timms for mine.
Really sucks that this is how her Opals career ends
:'(

Yeah I can't see him sticking around a moment longer. He probably got the call from head office the moment that buzzer sounded.

Penny is easily our 2nd best of all time although she stunk it up in the 2010 semi final v the Czech Republic and again today. Truly an exceptional player though.

Joyce can go back to where he was before he was gifted the Opals job.

Where he was before the Opals job? So you just mean somewhere subbing his halfwit son into a game where he hasn't the talent to compete? lol

Agree anon, Seebohm's job to lose, yes he is young but either we throw money at Tom Maher again that won't happen or you get Seebohm the assistants and help he needs.

Michelle Timms should be in the running too.

Yes I'd put Penny at #2 as well but Timms and Sporn deserve to get very honourable mentions

BA will possibly not go for Seebohm because of age and will be calling up WNBL coaches like Chris Lucas or even Guy Molloy.

with the probable decrease in funding for the opals as a result of this olympics, they probably won't have the dosh to pay a full time or international coach.

They could if the had less staff, but that's essential work being done in those offices.

Sandy Brondello?

In late breaking WNBL news, muntipule WNBL championship winning coach Chris Lucas has been sacked by the Adelaide Lightning in a 3:00 am phone call, after a scathing comment was anonymously posted on a local forum website.

Lucas was quoted as saying " I have to admit I did not see this coming, as a coach you know eventually you would lose some games you expected to win, and that most coaching jobs end with the sacking of a coach, but I thought i'd at least get through the first quarter of the first game ... as well... fair cop, if that person ( whoever they are) actually thinks that then i probably deserve to be sacked".

Guy Molloy was attempted to be contacted for his comment, but he was too busy applying for new jobs to take our call.

More later as news comes to hand.

Nat Burton = waste of space. She's too thin and has little to no presence out on the court. She got bullied inside all season long with the Lynx this year, not sure how she made the Opals

Oh god no not Molloy or Lucas, neither would be an upgrade to Joyce , just a slightly different version. And please not Tom Maher,

Seebottom whilst having success at Un17 is a long way from seniors at international, same as the players he coached, yes they killed within their own age group, but they tank against women in SEABL ( especially now they don't have Gorris)

It will depend who is going to look after the c of e program now as to how any of them develop. Some of those who are currently there really shouldn't be after watching them play in SEABL

Think they need new blood , maybe penny Taylor might like to throw her hand in, Lauren Jackson, even Gorris would be a better option than Molloy Lucas and maher put together, his bronze came because choco had way too much input, and again no defence, defence wins games,

Heads will roll surely.

Lauren Jackson needs to be blooded for the job now!

With Penny Taylor as her assistant.

Joyce didn't commit any of the 26 turnovers, and many of them didn’t appear to be structural, but his coaching over the tournament was far from strong and the resultant poor form was the platform for the shocker against Serbia.

Joyce deserved great credit for how an almost completely new group performed in 2014, but equally he deserves criticism for not being able to get mostly the same group (plus Cambage) to perform with any consistency in Rio. Time for someone else to have a go now.

I disagree Paul, many of those turnovers seemed to be generated from the stagnant (read non-existent) and predictable offense and the general lack of confidence in the group, which at least in part appeared to be generated from the coaching or lack thereof.

End of an era for women's basketball in this country.

Some did, but many were very very basic errors you'd be disappointed if your U14 team made.

Many of these posts remind me of all the support shown for ex AIS and junior nat rep coaches like Brown and Clarke.

The good results of the u/17 and u/19 womens teams duplicate similar results in the history of the junior mens Australian teams, none of which translated easily into similar results at the senior level, either for the individual players or the coaches.

The parents and supporters of the current crop of junior women, who post here as anons, think that the juniors will continue to dominate in seniors, and that their current coaches walk on water, and are currently (or previously) feted by USA college coaches desperate to sign up talent to exploit within their USA college conference ( not develop for their, or our, national Olympic team).

they think that their daughters will develop at the same rate for the next 4 years over in that wonderful USA college system with those even more wonderful head coaches who seem just so ... Nice. The fact is for the most part those NCAA players just won't develop anywhare near as fast or as far as they expect. they are fodder for the college gam, not being apprenticed to a system with the goal as an olympic medal.

the fact is that the majority of the real future superstars of the (for example) USA senior womens team are not even identified yet. Check the roster translation to senior rep from previous junior tournaments of the other countries. Those players will be further identified and developed by the WNBA not the NCAA.

There is a huge difference between juniors and seniors for players, and even more so for coaches.

joyce's appointment is a throwback to the view that any coach in the NBL must by definition be a better pure basketball coach than a WNBL coach - not true now, and probably never was.

I don't have a problem with Joyce's appointment, he had the team playing a superb style at the WCs, but he didn't go close to replicating that in Rio bar a few patches here and there and the France game, and that means he has to go.

"Many of these posts remind me of all the support shown for ex AIS and junior nat rep coaches like Brown and Clarke."

Are you referring to the Seebohm fans with that?
Because I'm a fan too, and it's got nothing to do with the U17's. He has been impressing since the first game he coached the Sydney Flames.

Re. the turnovers, has anyone ever seen a coach barking out instructions constantly for 40 minutes in a game at this level? It's under-10's stuff to me. Let them play! What does it do to a player's psyche when they're constantly listening to the yelling? You reckon it gives them confidence? You reckon it lets them focus on what they're doing?
We've seen plenty of these players and they're not nervous bumbling wrecks by nature. I absolutely blame both the coaching style and the complete lack of a game plan (other than "Get it to Liz. She'll save us") for a lot of those turnovers.
If there was a system out there I couldn't recognise it.

"Joyce didn't commit the turnovers, but he was responsible for putting players who had no business being on the Opals on the court to facilitate those turnovers."

According to the box score Mitchell had 6, Cambage 4, Jarry 5 and Phillips 3. No one else had more than 1. Quite comfortable with the lynching of Joyce after that effort but don't lose sight of the facts.

Very Old, you are not making a lot of sense today i'm afraid...

"The good results of the u/17 and u/19 womens teams duplicate similar results in the history of the junior mens Australian teams, none of which translated easily into similar results at the senior level, either for the individual players or the coaches."

Sorry, that is just nonsensical - what are you trying to say? The womens structure as a whole has delivered very good international results over nearly 3 decades.

"they think that their daughters will develop at the same rate for the next 4 years over in that wonderful USA college system with those even more wonderful head coaches who seem just so ... Nice. The fact is for the most part those NCAA players just won't develop anywhare near as fast or as far as they expect. they are fodder for the college gam, not being apprenticed to a system with the goal as an olympic medal."

Just a statement without any semblance of plausibility... do you know how few of our elite women go through the college system? Or more importantly how many don't.

"joyce's appointment is a throwback to the view that any coach in the NBL must by definition be a better pure basketball coach than a WNBL coach - not true now, and probably never was."

And just when are we throwing back to? The Opals and women's program have had pretty specialised women's coaches for a long time now.. Graf,Jan,Tom....

you make Good points HO , i'm a bit under the weather after my slow burn rage exploding watching the game. I probably am just blathering -

i meant the men's junior Gold in the late 90's did not translate into immediate impact at the senior level with those players in the next decade.

The women's structure for most of that 30 years was focused around the AIS and the WNBL, with the lower number of WNBL teams , the differing focus of the AIS/COE , and the growing importance of the USA college system, players development are handled by many more "hands" and fewer of those coaches aims are directed towards international competition.
This means that many of the players who could have developed international careers for Australia get derailed by the NCAA, and we didn't ever have a large talent pool to start with,particularly with netball now receiving such a high profile as well ( and good on em)

I thought that Joyce's appointment by BA did not reflect any respect for the success that the specialised womens coaches that you mentioned had upon the Opals' program, IMHO it reflected Steven Icke's zero experience in womens sports, and Gaze's perceived disinterest in getting into the nitty gritty in selecting the opals coaches, he is really just a nice guy....not a real critical thinker, the sydney NBL coaching experiment will be interesting.

I think we need to get back to

What was the thinking behind not only taking Burton but starting her? Is she a better complement to Cambage than Tolo?

Fair enough.

I would still argue that very few of our genuine Opals prospects are going to College - that may be changing now but on the whole, very few Opals have bothered with College.

Brendan was an interesting appointment, but his 2014 results were exceptional considering what happened to that team.

I am no J0yce fan but I was impressed with what was delivered at the WC's.

Unfortunately that result probably gave him more license than he needed. Stacker criticised his choices for assistants, and probably correctly in hindsight - if not for individual ability but as a group.

The Opals have long coached themselves as well. Our backcourt didn't seem that smart here (consider the luxury of Harrower and others before), and Penny being named as Captain was excellent recognition, but perhaps didn't reflect how much time she missed with this team.

This team lacked a personality for me, so typical of Opals teams in the past. They might have been better had they lost a pool game and then smartened/straightened up as a result. I think when you use that get out of jail card you just think your form turnaround is coming, rather than taking corrective action.

And off court, this team has had fabulous/famous culture types around them - team managers etc, who knows what this was like this time around.

Some people are sad to see Penny go out this way, but she has been a stalwart of the Opals as both a junior and senior player in the team and feasted on international success - World Champion, Tournament MVP, just amazing.

1. We have wondered that for 2 years here
2. No

(in response to Isaac)

Wow, trying to pull a top four women's players?

Jackson, Taylor, Harrower, Timms, Maher, Brondello, Fallon and a whole bunch of others... Sandie/Gorman was truly great in an Opals uniform, so so many names.

Harrower and Penny were the keys to that 2006 world champs... Lauren was great, as usual, but those two...

I suspect the Opals now spend a few years languishing in the 5th to 8th range until this next group comes through. We desperately need a point guard, our bigs are still international class.

Luuuc, playing Burton-apologist can you think of what he might have been thinking with the selection? Is it an intangible like basketball IQ? Someone level-headed to work beside Cambage - surely Tolo and Hodge can both provide that.

The guard spots - a strength of aussie women's ball for many years - have been an obvious issue for a while now. Thank goodness Leilani's aussie roots were discovered.

Going forward, I thought Mansfield was looking like a legit option. Her injury at the end of the WNBL season killed her chances for Rio, but she should slot straight back in to the business end of the squad now.
Still waiting to see who else is going to stand up though.

It's hard to know how many of this current team will still be realistic chances for Tokyo. A lot of them are in that borderline range IMO.

"I am no J0yce fan but I was impressed with what was delivered at the WC's.

Unfortunately that result probably gave him more license than he needed."

I think this sums it up well. I also think Joyce struggled to incorporate Cambage into the successful style of 2014, and instead of having a team that played different styles depending on who was on court, we ended up with an ugly mix that didn't really allow most players to utilise their strengths.

Isaac, regarding Burton:
Let me preface this by stressing that I dislike posting about her here, because I support her all the way. She was a bright spot for a struggling West Coast Waves team. She returned to Perth as a Lynx player last season and I continue to cheer for her.

What was Joyce thinking? If you have followed my Lynx/Opals posts here over the last 2-3 years you'd know that I have been wondering the same thing. Justifications have been trotted out, and they are all easily debunked.
In a nutshell, Joyce has been obsessed with what he thinks Burton *could* be. Which is a tall & mobile 4 at the defensive end, and a facilitator at the offensive end who can also sprint the floor to get some cheap points along the way.
Problem #1 is that she is not quick. People go on about her time trials or whatever. Straight line speed from baseline to baseline is of very limited value in basketball. (If Olympic champion Marion Jones can't parlay it into effectiveness on the court, then who can???) As a post player, Nat is meant to be getting rebounds, not cherry picking for cheapies. So, surprise surprise, against all but the weakest of opponents her running is of very limited value.
Her lateral quickness is not good. That's the bottom line. Secondly, she's also not strong. It really limits who she can guard effectively. Even in the WNBL there are limited good match-ups for her. Internationally it's a much bigger issue.
Offensively she is being used as a 4 but has the game of a 5. She is smart and knows the spots to get to, but her effective shooting range is 3cm. She is better than most at running a play and setting a pick, and she's a pretty good passer from the high post, but any time she is out of the paint the defence can just ignore her.

So I really don't understand what Joyce thought she would be doing against Olympic-level competition. If she had any scoring ability then she could have worked well in tandem with Cambage, but she's not a scorer. Even in the WNBL - after I eliminate the players who played only token minutes - Burton was 75th in the league in points per minute. 75th, in a league of 40 starters. It's a big ask to carry that. You need to bring something else to the table at a high level (such as Jenni Screen did with her defence), and she just doesn't.
He thought he could turn Burton into a taller version of a younger Laura Hodges. I don't know where he got that idea from, but more to the point, I have no idea why he dug his heels in when it was clear that that's not what Nat is.

It is sadly ironic that Joyce's vision was for a quick team, and yet our inability as defenders to stay in front of opponents is one of the major things that brought the team undone.

One last comment on this.

If Andrej Lemanis included Luke Schenscher in the Boomers team as a mobile PF, how would that go? What if he started him? Would that go well?
When it *shock* didn't go well, but he insisted on keeping him in the starting 5 anyway, despite David Andersen as a reserve out-playing Luke and helping dig the team out of holes every game, who should get the blame? Luke?

Luuuc, I know relatively little about the depth of our current players, but I was shocked at these games how frequently numerous Opals players were unable to even make a pretense of staying in front of their defender. The lateral quickness on defence just hasn't been there. And then there was invariably no help/recover defence to speak of at all. I think your criticism of Burton in that regard is fair, but she was far from a outlier in that category.

I didn't mean to suggest she was the only one in that category. That was indeed a problem across the team, and was only further exacerbated by our "switch everything" philosophy.

I'd be unable to play properly with Joyce there.
Although I mentioned that before.

At least one ref told him to get out of the way.

He carries on at the sideline as if he is masturbating himself.

^^ oh...interesting comment

I played 3000 games over 30years .. A long time ago......

"I assume you are a girl too."

Pretty terrible assumption considering it's already established that their age is 30+!

Hi Daniel,

Good to have you on board posting. You certainly have the experience to post a comment re some one else not having the ability to play at particular levels.

no need to be shy , pick a name ;)

Luuuc, appreciate the post. Has he ever coached her directly outside of this team and camps? Or just became enamoured through camps and maybe lack of alternatives for the prototype he was seeking?

Smyth made some awkward Boomers picks in his run. I think Nash was one. At least I could understand that - Nash was a 3-and-D guy, could guard multiple positions, solid character, good team guy, etc. Did he pick Dench too?

Anyway, they would've won that game last night at least had they not panicked or been lazy with the ball. There was a hand-off right in front of the coach that was snatched and taken for a lay up. Purely player error or players thrown off their game by sideline barking?

Certain coach has a history of doing well 1st year, then 2nd year playing certain player/s favorites and team not performing. Then losing favour with owners, sponsors, fans and eventually the job.

History has just repeated.

In many ways I don't blame the coach, he was just doing what he believed and what he has always done.

I totally blame the people at Basketball Australia who signed off on the team, who signed off on leaving out the league MVP, who signed off on an assistant coach with no league experience, with signing off on the burning of bridges with many of our elite players.

With so many other female sports rising into prominence cricket, AFL, soccer and always Netball, it was very very important for basketball to shine at these Olympics. Instead we have seen very poor style of play, poor behaviour by some, players seem unsure of their roles and being outworked and out hustled by nearly every other team and also demoted the value of the WNBL by overlooking the league MVP.

It is likely to be looked back on a watershed moment for the sport.

I am not sure who is responsible at BA, board or employee but someone sure has a lot to answer for.


What is Jan Stirling up to these days?

Where did I see Stirling recently......
Aw that is it with the Opals when selected to go to Rio in a BA blazer...

( Erin Phillips playing footy for the Crows , just then on radio 'street talk')

Isaac,
No particular history with Nat that I am aware of. (Very little history with any senior women's basketball that I am aware of)

Yes - Smyth did make some interesting choices. I remember a lot of noise being made over selections around that time. (Yep, Dench, and I think Egan & Derek Moore were also there, and from memory the team balance was weird too - lack of guards?) That all went down after a significant changing of the guard - which I guess has some parallels with the current Opals, although some of the Opals losses this time were pushed/ignored rather than retired.

And yes it was a 2 point game that included a multitude of sloppy plays, so there are plenty of moments we could point to as "what ifs" that could have resulted in a different outcome.
That's actually what makes it harder for me to do so. Had this been a tight, well-drilled team that made a few big blunders, you could point to those and say that some uncharacteristic errors were costly. But our whole tournament was defined by disappointing play. We looked a good team in one out of 6 games, and from everything I saw I can't say we deserved to advance further.
We probably should have defeated Serbia by 15+ , just as we should have dispensed with Turkey & Belarus with ease, but we failed to use our players to good effect. Even if you accept everyone's ideas about who should and shouldn't have been in the team, the fact is that our core of Mitchell, Phillips, Taylor & Cambage were always going to be the key players, and they were all there.


The constant sideline shouting thing really bothered me. To me, that type of micromanagement gives the perception of a lack of preparation, or a lack of faith in the players - neither of which is a good thing once you hit the quarter final stage of the Olympic games. If the players are listening to that, it has to be distracting and frustrating. If they're not listening, then that doesn't exactly say good things either.
Bombarding players with constant words ... how much of that sinks in? How do they process all the messages? Surely the system should be second-nature by this stage, and just the key adjustments should need to be pointed out.

I'd actually be interested to hear a pro player's take on that aspect - because maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree with this aspect. But I would think that the players on the court should be focussed on the immediate action and communicating with each other - not tuned in to an external voice. These are good players - and in most cases quite experienced - and I believe that their playing instincts would be diminished when their mind is not clearly focussed on the task at hand. By all means suggest a play to run or a change of defensive structure, but there's got to be a point where timely helpful advice just becomes a saturation of clutter?

You make a good point, dani. The timing of this disappointment is especially unfortunate given all the other things (positive things) happening in women's sport at the moment.

Micromanager at the finest, and put himself ahead of the team time and time again. What kind of message does that send to players? The fact that he continued to start Nat when she played a horrible tournament for her own standard just to prove everyone wrong was a selfish and very un-Opalslike move.

I thought '756 might've been exaggerating, but almost every single post in that thread is critical of the coaching and selections. Wow.

Its always a little bit discouraging for me when Boti does get it right , http://www.botinagy.com/blog/opals-must-select-best-12-for-rio/ it always seems to encourage him to think he's more of a basketball genius rather than just a very experienced commentator.

I think O'Hea and Batgirl would have seen us into the medal rounds, and Allen may have been more use than some. Did we really need a dedicated PG backup like Lavey, who has not really performed in the WNBL, could we not have given Mitchell a rest by swinging Philips into that role with assistance from 2 of Taylor/O'Hea/jarry to pass the ball up the court ? with a better offence we should have produced more daylight between our score and the opposition,

just everyone running down court other than Burton and the PG, was very predictable and asking for turnovers.

I have watched parts of the game, not the whole game but enough to see that we were poor in many areas and Serbia really pressured us with their attitude of 'nothing to lose'.

I find that the talk of what and who could have made a difference in hindsight exactly that, being clever in hindsight.

Yet, we were one foul away in the dying seconds from maybe sending it to overtime and a totally different result being discussed.

Yes, we probably would still be saying how poorly we played in key areas and that we would have been very lucky, etc... However it is over now and we need to look forward, as sad as it is for all concerned, I think our potential for the Opals to regroup at international level remains high!