Josh Giddey? Get out of here man, it's too early.

Tall Blacks squad is pretty weak; well actually the PC answer might be "young". Resembled more like a put together team you'd send to some tournament in China rather than a fully fledged national team;

This piss-poor Australian team will at very least take care of Hong Kong. And I expect a better team for next qualifiers. We will qualify for Asia Cup one way or another. But still, this might be the weakest team under the "Boomers" name in history. Josh Giddey with an eye to the future if a nice inclusion but outside of that, nothing to really interest me.

The Tall blacks squad isn't great but a boomers victory is no certainty.

This might be the worst boomers team ever out on the floor in over 40 years!

Not much they can do with what's left, I prob would've tried going with less youth though.

Sobey, Cadee, Gliddon, Magnay, Pineau, Drimic, DJ, Blanchfield, Stephens (need a sharpshooter with no Goulding), Naar, Dech, Adnam

PG: Cadee/Naar/Adnam
SG: Sobey/Drimic/Dech
SF: Blanchfield/Gliddon/Stephens
PF/C: DJ/Magnay/Pineau

And this compared to the likely Tall Blacks squad:

Loe/Smith-Milner
Delany/Vukona
Rusbatch/Ngatai/Harris
Te Rangi/Prewster
Ili/Britt/Kenny

Embarrassing that some of these guys will get to represent Australia. Youth need to earn their spot, their time will when it is ready.

"Embarrassing that some of these guys will get to represent Australia. Youth need to earn their spot, their time will when it is ready."

To be fair, in games as meaningless as this, and with all the talent that isn't available, I don't think it matters.

"Embarrassing that some of these guys will get to represent Australia. Youth need to earn their spot, their time will when it is ready."

To be fair, in games as meaningless as this, and with all the talent that isn't available, I don't think it matters.

If this version of Boomers can't beat Hong Kong then something is wrong.

Tonight is NZ

What happens if we lose ??

Nothing. (Well, other than some LOLs, some ribbing from the Kiwis, and some people blowing things out of proportion)

We've got 2 games to play against each of NZ, Hong Kong, and Guam, and we just have to finish top 2 in our group. Even Ph!l Smy#h couldn't find a way to stuff that up.

Pity Barlow is in the NBL playoffs and therefore unavailable for this game, or we could have played him at PG just for old time's sake :p

True about Russell and Heal, but at least no Dickicide,

2 days practice with a team of the worst nbl players against New Zealand. What did you think was going to happen?

Where are the fools saying Giddey was ready now? Run at me haterz, I was proven correct.

Pretty watchable game even though NZ carved us up

The name's Cool Howie, don’t wear it out.

Blanchfield was a disgrace.

Chillwohie - first up game. Good to get so m e court time into young guys. Kiwis full.of vets - got lucky.

Sobey. Blanchfield...without those two on the floor Australia wins.

BREAKING: Team of players who have never played before, working with completely new coach and new system, signed from a limited field specifically excluding a lot of talent, and skewed towards the development of youth, does not perform to the expectations of those who somehow thought it was an A side.

Nothing. (Well, other than some LOLs, some ribbing from the Kiwis, and some people blowing things out of proportion)

*never played together before

Wasn't an Olympic side though

Adnam is lucky to be in the NBL1 team of the year and now he is a boomer.

At this point they are devaluing the jersey!

I'm neither surprised nor deflated by the result. People talk a lot about A, B and C teams, but I am not even sure what letter to give this team. They're not even necessarily the best of what is available. They're like the pet projects of the bottom four teams of the league, plus some guys who do have experience but that no one seriously rates. Blanchfield isn't ever gonna play in anything meaningful for the Boomers. Sobey is "solid" but not spectacular in the NBL. Losing to an experienced NZ team, all of whom have played together, is kind of something I expected.

The stakes aren't that high all in all. This is qualification for the Asia Cup, a tournament that has no bearing on Olympic or World Cup outcomes. We'll probably qualify anyway but even if we don't we'll be fine in the scheme of things.

When your top two minutes guys are 2 for 15 behind the arc, and you miss 13 free throws shooting 10 less free throws than your opponent, then you are not going to win many games. Surprised they weren't beat by 30.

So a Kiwi B team beats an Aussie D team by ONLY 10 points in a fairly meaningless game, given that both teams are almost certain to go through?

Why bother getting worked up about it? SMH

We assume we'll beat Hong Kong but we actually don't know anything about the team. We just assume they're a low-mid tier, cookie cutter Asian team, but we don't know that the team hasn't been together for a decade. This isn't even an NBL Boomers team we're bringing. It's the NBL D level Illawarra Boomers. We 'should' beat a team like Hong Kong but we actually have no way of knowing.

Will be beat Guam?

Pulling out the +/- stats in a joke game like this is peak Heal commentary

Muted so didn't hear him. He's a joke.

115-52
Boxscore

Sensational win by the Boomers. Utterly dominant. And to think that this wasn't even our best possible lineup because CG43 was unavailable.
Gold medal in Tokyo for sure. Only thing that could stop us now is the games being cancelled due to coronavirus and even then we'd probably still be given our medals because it's obvious we're gonna win them.

Pathetic.
What a complete and utter waste of time.

I would rather they sent the Emus, because some of those players simply don't deserve to wear the Australian uniform, ever.

Just once, I would like to see us send a full strength NBA team. Flog some of these muppets 200 to 20, and hopefully put an end to this stupidity.

The only thing that would make these farce matches worse would be if a superstar got injured in one

"Pulling out the +/- stats in a joke game like this is peak Heal commentary"

I didn't hear it, but did he mention Giddey's ridiculously high +38 in 13 minutes? While I understand some people don't like +/- as evidence, surely that would be worth mentioning for a 17-year-old on debut. Giddey's debut was sensational after blowing that first layup. 11 points (including 2/3 3pt), 6 assists, 0 turnovers in under 13 minutes. That +38 is representative to some extent of his steadying impact. The Boomers went on a massive run when he first entered the game. Then as soon as he sat down, Hong Kong went something like 9-0.

I don't follow tennis all that closely, but for most of the major tournaments, its only the spuds who have to qualify. And I can also recall tourneys where the seeded players didn't play until the 2nd round.

And frankly I think that makes for a better competition.
By all means let the minnows fight it out in games that actually mean something. Nobody wants to see Australia playing Hong Kong.

I haven;t looked at any other groups. Are they all as pathetic and pointless as ours?
Groups of 4, with two teams progressing? So you put Australia and NZ in with two teams from bumfuck nowhere??
And the ONE game people might actually care about is reduced to a farce by selecting a bunch of hobos.

I've got no objection to any country in the region having a crack. I just think top vs bottom is a waste of time & money, and getting slaughtered doesn't benefit the development of Hong Kong or whatever other bunch of jabronis either. You can learn and improve from losses, but not from total annihilations. Surely there's got to be a better system than this.

Wonder how many on this boomers squad end up playing for the Kings next year? This was like an open audition for both sides. Probably worth a week's time for the coach to start filling in the gaps for next year .