awesome - for those that can attend - what an experience !

Tier 1 - should comfortably win the WC
USA

Tier 2 - Medal chance
China
Japan
Belgium
Australia
Serbia
France
Bosnia
Canada

Tier 3 - Hard to see any of these teams making it past pool play.
Puerto Rico
Mali
Korea

Who is broadcasting it?

ESPN & Kayo I believe

Looks like it is also streamable on Courtside 1891

Thanks mate

cleared out my Foxtel memory space and have them all set to record ! is that 10.30 EST ?

3 good games in

USA vs Belgium
Can vs Serbia
Aus vs France




Dropping the teams from 16 to 12 was a mistake, hopefully goes back to 16 next WC.

All times in the top post are Eastern Standard, yes.

Looks like every game is available live & FREE on Kayo Freebies.

Nice comeback by Belgium.

Hearing Lori Chizik commentate these games really makes me miss Jeff Taylor & Shona Thorburn.

Apparently Aussie fans might be familiar with Betnijah Laney, because she played a season in the WNBL, in Melbourne :/

Should have made onlybottom tier seating available. Looks like a tiny crowd when it really isn't.
Lose the music, up the court volume.

Puerto Rico beat Bosnia 82-58
USA beat Belgium 87-72

Is that PR result a huge upset Weedy?

Hearing Lori Chizik commentate these games really makes me miss Jeff Taylor & Shona Thorburn.

Is that PR result a huge upset Weedy?

So that's a 40 point swing.

Is that just a case of us having the local rather than world feed?

Not a huge upset, Jones just got into Australia after wnba finals, was gassed after first 1/4.
Puerto Rico have added guarantes and Hollingshed which is a boost from previous team. Lost gwatmey though.

1 team was bound to make into top 4 in the group, South Korea I doubt will make it in.
Bosnia now have to upset someone to make top 4.

Huge upset according to the bookies though - PR were paying odds up to 14-1. You should have bet.

You hope when Bosnia is having a bad day that Herzegovina will step up their game to compensate but it just didn't happen today.

On the other hand Rico stepped up big time and so did Puerto.

Yeah Puerto came out on fire. Rico wasn't even really needed but they joined the party anyway. I think they were both offended by being called Tier 3.

W.A humour

Canada beat Serbia 67-60
Japan beat Mali 89-56

PRico ranked higher in FIBA rankings than Bosnia_H

And australia is no3 in the world and we've only won 65% games in 3 years...

Australia won't medal. Gold-USA Silver-China Bronze-Canada

The new Spanish coach of Canada is highly rated. Very good defensive coach.
Not sure they can get bronze this tournament but regular medals in 3+ years is highly likely.


Future is bright for them...
U25

Leaders perhaps
Nurse 96
Carleton 97

From this WC, Add exp to
Colley 96
Hanson 00
Konig 98
Gilles 97
Amihere 01
Kyei 03

Highly rated Youth to Bring in
Te-Biasu 01
Day-Wilson 03
Pellington 99
Gibb 05
Russell 02
Hylton 04
Prawl 07
Prosper 05
Becker 00
Fournier 05
Edwards 02
Lattimore 03


Will challenge usa in 5 years imo

Nurse (25+) captain

So during the panel show, Timmsy mentioned that Madgen is pretty banged up going into the tournament.
Thank goodness we selected all that guard depth!

1 guard short for sure, maybe 2. The panel expects us to win bronze, hope so..

Jenni Screen rivaling Brad Rosen for words per minute.

"Apparently Aussie fans might be familiar with Betnijah Laney, because she played a season in the WNBL, in Melbourne :/"
LOL
Bendigo is close to Melbourne but will never claim to being part of it.
Perth, little bit further away.

Jackson.

1 quarter down with no damage done and the LJ bucket out of the way.
Hopefully the nerves are settled now.

Time to crank up the intensity level.

Who was favoured to win this match? I hadn't followed any pre-tourney banter.

Sandy's tanties don’t fill me with confidence.

Serbia's defence v our guard situation will be interesting if we get them in any crossovers

With the amount we depend on the dribble to get the ball up, we're asking for double-teams and to be pressured. It’s not putting France under any pressure, and I can see it being a major weakness later in the tournament.

Bec Allen: 4/9
The rest: 4/25

Is Rupert of France related to the next star of the breakers.

Opal's missing to many lay ups, defensively very good.

Day 1 has been very interesting USA looked very good. Australia, France all looking like they have a bit more that will go on the court as the tournament progresses. China good. Belgium - see how their tall's knee knee is.

Dunkman, I thought a number of poor defensive lapses have cost us. France hasn't been 'scoring at will' but I think they've been burning our d and getting some good drives to the bucket.

Loving O'Hea in the media, she seems really suited to it. Griffin looks a stunner tonight as well.

Hoping we can get a bit of good momentum and break away in the second half.

Yeah, I wasn't that impressed with our early D either, though we seemed to adjust and get a bit more in sync as the half went on. So I'm not hating where we're at, at that end at least. Hopefully we keep getting away with a bit from the refs.

Some buckets would be handy though.

1st game to be critical but how can the coaches think Madgen can confidently play PG. Lauren Jackson is faster than her

We've had the looks and created some good opportunities, but lacked the composure to finish. Hopefully we can put it together in this last quarter

Again I'm no expert on womens basketball but our shooting is average at best, to many lay ups missed.

Talbot is so bad

I'm no expert either but I've seen enough to know that you're quite right about that

Talbot is playing uncharacteristically badly.

So many missed shots. So frustrating.

Who was favoured to win this match? I hadn't followed any pre-tourney banter.

Opals have never seen a pocket pass that isn't there they haven’t liked

Don't want to be negative Nelly on day 1 but I think the Brondello experiment has run its course
You can't coach 2 teams at the same time.
It is showing in our play, not enough playing with each other, not enough reading what the opposition is giving up, no real flow ...
Guard set up needs a Tweek.
A22

I'd rather see Jackson down low on attack instead of being (guarded) out on the 3-point line

I'd rather see Jackson than George.
I read a lot on hear complaining about the coach, now I know why. Get Timms out the commentary box to coach.

Agree, A22. France looks like a TEAM that knows how to play together.

Well, that went pretty much as I expected, unfortunately

Deserved win by France, whose game was not brilliant, but they still finish their plays better than the Opals. We lost the game in the first 5 mins into 3rd quarter by butchering the ball in offence. The french adjusted their defense, defended higher and looked to disturb opal passing. In particular they paid extra defensive attention to Allen, who buried repeated set shots in first half. Brondello failed to notice or adjust the opal off so just as the defensive heat was turned up on Allen, the opals looked to push the ball more to her. Result - stops and fumbles in offence. Allen is a catch abd shoot guard, she is not so good at this level driving or playmaking.

I would like to win but the greater good is for us to get embarrassed at our own WC.
I can't be the only one who’s been waiting for a coaching cleanout.

Opals simply just not fit enough to hang with France. Sloppy offence and passing, and not finishing at the rim. But at the core of it is second rate fitness

Brent Goriss apart of the cleanout....

We are currently
Slow, Big and Strong with poor mobility and a lack of athleticism.
We get gassed very quickly compared to most other teams.
We get beaten off the dribble a hell of alot.
We struggle to close out perimeter shooters and chase rebounds.
We are the slowest tempo side in the comp.

Was the same in Tokyo, Asia cup, WC qualifiers and now first game of the WC.

We need to transition to fast, lean n mean. More cardio, less strength training.


We were just beaten by a France side not expected to make top 4 , and missing 5 key players. No johannes, no Gruda, no epoupa, no vukosaljevic, no miyem.
3 of the 5 above are regular starters.

The loss of Cambage has set the program back on it heels, for years they relied on a dominant player and the rest was built around that. Now we have no-one that can dominate , we have no specialist point guards and struggle to score inside or outside.

I see lots of lean years ahead and the cleanout of the System needs to start at the top, too many old mates of BA still hanging around clinging onto the old days.

The return of Jackson is a diversion to the lack of talent that is available , we have a national program that cannot produce 1 point guard that can play at this level.

I feel a enquiry coming on after this tournament has finished that will say a lot and do very little.

Changes I'd like to see if we fail, Something like...

HC Brondello > ?
AC Lange > Seebohm(Tactician)
AC Chambers > Veal(Mentor)
AC Goriss > Herbert(Motivator)
SC Goriss > ? (Cardio, cardio, cardio)
CC Banning > ? (What culture …)
TM Fallon > ?


Does someone like Fleur McIntyre get a shot?
A foreign hc maybe?
An nbl assistant or another coach from wnbl/nbl1?

IMO there wasn't that much that separated Opals from France. I disagree somewhat with Kanga - regarding the lack of finishing at the rim. There is a manic tone to the Opal offence that attempts to speed up ball transition won't solve.
You play to the defence you face - and the Opals are a side KNOWN to enjoy dribble driving, running at multiple defenders and finishing at the rim. The Americans make offense look easy because they do all the little things well to set up good shot looks, they don't seek ALWAYS to finish at the rim - they are trained to find an open spot in/near the zone and pop the shot. In Australia - it is an acceptable mistake to drive to the rim and miss; but it is unacceptable to put up a mid range set shot and miss.

Cosmo, Kanga, Red and Weedy have nailed it, in my opinion. Especially the 'manic' part - sums it up so well.

I disagree that speeding up our game won’t help - fast movement up the court and finishing against one or two will be easier than finishing against a set defence. And I remember earlier Opals teams that did this.

The other thing I didn’t see much from the Opals was fast passing in a combination to get someone free near the basket.

I feel like our screens to start our offense just aren’t working - too predictable and slow and poorly set - whereas the French ones were really effective.

So pleased Tolo made such a difference when she was on - we just didn’t seem interested in having an inside presence for a lot of the time.

Sandy trying to play WNBA-style games against top Euro-style teams isn’t going to work as we just don’t have the superstars anymore to win the iso battles.

Respect to the girls representing us, and they have the potential to surprise still, but I reckon the odds were always against them based on the coaching staff and upwards.

"So during the panel show, Timmsy mentioned that Madgen is pretty banged up going into the tournament.
Thank goodness we selected all that guard depth! "

She's been injury laden for years , she’s not a true point guard, none of the ones they currently have either in the team or in their squad are true PHs that can take control of tempo and be an “on court “ coach when needed
They are far too old across the board? And LJ looked absolutely cooked after two minutes , she does not look fit even fir a 40 yr old
This isn’t NBL1 easy where she’s the best in a team of players who literally couldn’t win a game in prior seasons with most of its roster

All this hype of LJ the goat, yep she was in her day but not now
And sorry Wallace is not the PG they are making her out to be, sure she can play defence but only in short bursts then gets out of control
Opals need a new coach entirely( BA new new blood too, Stirling in a weight around their neck ) and a new direction
Old school ball just won’t cut it with these fast paced smaller line ups

Wallace works her arse off on defence so there's a role for her in the 12.
Problem is our lack of talent has got us trying to fill roles with the wrong players. You can get away with it at WNBL level but not in a world cup.
I mean we've been talking about the guard situation here for several years.
This predicament is mostly a junior development issue IMO.

I spent 5 mins listening to the commentary and realized it was blinkered and excessively partisan. After that i watched the game with sound muted. Minus the noise, you can concentrate on observing what is actually going on.

The biggest issue, given our lack of PG expertise, is our entry into offence. The constant trying to feed the ball to stationary targets makes us sitting ducks.

It's as simple as running the SF or SF off a flair screen to loosen the defence on the screener, then we can make our entry pass easily. It's a problem Brondello should have found a solution for long ago.

Good observation mightymouse. And IMO critical to the effectivess of opal offence is its capacity to hit the HP or LP reasonably securely, and have that big secure the ball and then pass/spin/shoot from that position. This is the hallmark of the US team. Look at the ease with which Brianna Stewart goes about it. Don't get me wrong, it is great technique and good team play that makes it look easy.

Red84, Timmsy wasn't afraid to call out changes that should've been made later in the game.

I'm shocked that with this big, slow group with limited creators at guard positions (as evidenced last night), we don't play out of the low block more and have scoring actions away from the ball. Everything was a ball screen or a handoff, which played into the hands of the French that applied some impressive pressure.

Maybe I'm a numpty, but Timsy said almost the exact same thing a few minutes after I thought a change had to be coming - but never materialised.

Cayla George has escaped the critique of posters on here: she can't defend at an international level and I hasn't consistently offered enough offensively since Tokyo to justify her minutes. LJ was very effective out there in the same role, and Tolo changed the tone of the game with her injection.

Defensively, the Opals look lost on their ball screen coverage. Maybe I missed something but Sandy called them out for over-switching, when we had given up multiple drives due to a lack of help from the big and a necessary switch....

Not enough ball pressure generally, especially from Talbot. Giving their best players the time and space to catch where they want and operate with the ball in hand will make your job containing them so much more difficult.

Agree with many of your points Interpreter. Certainly in that third quarter, with French defrnse pressing high and committing to block outlet passing lanes, if the Opals had some dangerous options out of Lp or HP - the side effect will be to cause the French to back off and contract the D. But that was a gear the Opals did not use.

2024

Remain
96 5'11 Wallace sg, not a pg
94 6’2 Talbot sf, not a sg, can also play pf
92 6’2 Allen sf, can also play pf
93 6’2 Blicavs pf, not a sf
98 6’2 Maley pf, not a sf
99 6’4 Magbegor c, not a pf

Out
88 5’10 Whitcomb - will be 36 in 2024 (another naturalised?)
90 5’11 Madgen -
94 6’2 Garbin -
89 6’4 George - will be 35 in 2024
89 6’5 Tolo - will be 35 in 2024
81 6’5 Jackson - will be 43 in 2024

In
93 5’8 Lavey pg
02 5’10 Melbourne cg
96 6’4 Smith c
(+ these 3 would make 9 players)


(3 open spots for) (1 pg-cg / 1 sg-sf / 1 pf-c)
Players I’d like to see tested in the next cycle
+
Players that deserve another shot
+
Brightest prospects

96 5’6 Reid
01 5’6 Amoore - under the radar, playing well in ncaa
95 5’6 Mangakahia - true pg, if she can get back to early ncaa form
98 5’6 Rocci
01 5’6 Heal
03 5’7 Deeble - played very well at u19 WC
07 5’7 Hall - probably the highest rated g prospect in decades.
01 5’9 Scanlon - had all the tools as a junior, hopefully a resurgence
00 5’9 Shelley - has been solid in ncaa
92 5’10 Garrick
00 5’10 Goodchild - great shooter
95 5’10 Wehrung
03 5’10 Swain - has all the tools to be a great sg
04 5’11 Borlase - high iq
93 5’11 Nicholson
01 5’11 Nnopu - could be elite defender
98 6’0 Atwell
02 6’1 Potter - fantastic junior, first wnbl season
97 6’1 Sharp
91 6’2 Kunek
04 6’2 Puoch - probably the brightest sf prospect.
98 6’2 Horvat - could be the next Talbot, minus shooting.
96 6’2 Froling
97 6’4 Mckay
98 6’4 Aokuso - highest upside c if in supreme shape.
93 6’5 Bunton
96 6’5 Scherf

Given their impact when on the court, Weedy, I wouldn't ditch Tolo or Whitcomb just yet, but keep them as 11 and 12 on the bench, maybe.

Agree with the blow it up and start again vibe.

Apart from anything else, the culture just looks wrong. We used to have a steely determination, now everyone looks, well comfortable..

Real lack of ball movement and cohesion, expecting everyone to create their own shots, not going to cut it.

Our defensive pressure isn't at the standard.

I don't think tweaking will work, full rebuild is required.

A22

Agree Weedy with the outs, particularly George. One or two very nice moments but essentially blows up after a few minutes and that's just not good enough at this level.

I'd be keeping Tolo and George for their international experience and leadership for the next Olympics. George has been leading the huddles and last night's game she definitely showed her worth. Tolo's talent is undeniable too.

Yep give her credit, George was good when she came back on after the horror start and shot very nicely.