Coaching Panel
David Herbert - Head Coach
Keegan Crawford – Assistant Coach
Zoe Carr – Assistant Coach
Donna Turner – Team Manager
Vivien Der Tateossian – Physiotherapist
Maja Markovic – Team Doctor

Very odd carr moving to u19 assistant from u17 hc.

The vlahov pick a real head scratcher for me. Hadn't done much at the past 2 u20 ajcs.
Must have made alot of improvement at the Lynx.


Quite a few should be thilthy.
Have been great in nbl1, state league or ncaa.

Rotunno
Twidale
Simons
Ananiev
Crawshaw
Jacobs

Not many actual post players in this age group, it appears. Crawshaw is undersized, but has some decent skills from what I've seen.

Floor spacing also looks interesting, with the lack of outside shooting on the team and numerous perimeter players who prefer to drive the lane than shoot.

There's decent talent on the team, but I don't think the roster is well balanced in terms of skills and positions. They could do really well or very poorly.

5'5-5’6 Burrows 05 - Boomers dp
5’8-5’9 Gray 05 Coe
5’9 Heal 04 - Ncaa
5’11 Borlase 04 - Lightning
6’0 Clark 05 - Capitals
6’0-6’1 Brazel 04 - Lightning
6’0-6’1 Burrows 04 - Boomers dp to ncaa
6’1 Vlahov 04 - Lynx dp to ncaa
6’1-6’2 Shiels 06 Coe
6’2 Puoch 04 - Flyers
6’2-6’3 Petrie 05 Coe to ncaa
6’4 Juffermans 05 Coe

Certainly will miss Loughridge as starting PG.


IMO,
would have had

6’1-6’2 Crawshaw C/PF for Vlahov
-Crawshaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qLonNlkuj0


Toss up between 6’2 Ananiev F/G and 6’2 Shiels
-Ananiev
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgD7ZQY4z_I
-Shiels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKi1kBYxSYo&t=151s


5’5-5’6 Rotunno PG or 5’9-5’10 Twidale CG for Gray
-Rotunno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1uvlYhzp0k
-Twidale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqB1LMaxVjw

I'm not loving the selection of point guards, but admittedly haven't followed the progress of this group beyond the couple of standouts. Maybe they had a good camp.

Ananiev has been consistently underrated in my opinion. The team composition might not need what she brings, but she can really play.

Could have seen us getting silver again with this team

Loughridge / Heal
Borlase / Clark / Twidale
Brazel / Burrows / Ananiev
Puoch / Crawshaw
Juffermans / Petrie


3-6 placing with team selected, not enough off bench.

Heal / Burrows / Gray
Borlase / Clark
Brazel / Burrows / Shiels
Puoch / Vlahov
Juffermans / Petrie

Craws has is an elite athlete but only a very good basketballer and lacks the skills for the next level. If she keep improving on skills as she has over the past 12 months then yes but still under skilled.

Sheils is elite just needs confidence and some ability to play free.

Twidale > Rotunno


Just my humble opinion and as always, these girls are top basketballers in the country so really just nit picking at this stage from the cheap seats.

Crawshaw*

Distinct talent difference in just those selected. Vlahov is not anywhere near Puoch. 5 players offered ft wnbl contracts vs 3 who struggled to get ncaa offers.

Shiels is a very good player but as a double bottom, her time may be in 2 years -when she has the ball she can make something happen, off the ball she's a liability. Like I said, it was a toss up between Ananiev and Shiels for me. One though has been playing against women as a wnbl dp and the other injured for awhile.

Crawshaw is playing against women in nbl1 east and is apparently not ready?
The Coe is in the same conference.. but they are ready? the players having less than half the points and rbds vs the same opponent?

Other than that, I’m glad they didn’t guarantee spots to Coe kids. I hope they get 3 silvers in a row but it’ll be tougher this year than the previous 2 tournaments. Half the rosters are already out.

The u.s lost like 3 best players and still super strong.

Some of the big names are

USA Donovan
France Malonga
Spain Fam
Canada Fournier
Italy Villa

These are some very good players to come up against and it's not just them.

I am not going to bang any individuals who were chosen. Good luck to them all - they carry the national banner as well represent the very best of the 2004-2005-2006 age cohort. But. We need to keep in mind that the U19s is the last of the junior development cohorts. The selection pool consists of many who have sacrificed their studies in years 11 and 12 in order to invest in their game. At the U19 level, unlike say the U17 level, selectors need to dispense with "development prospect" thinking. Each slot should be hotly contested and won on merit and PROVEN competitiveness. Because enough evidence has accumulated by the U19 level to work out who can go next level and who cannot. From what I saw at the AJCs U20s recently I believe Carla Pitman and Ananiev have done enough to deserve selection.

....bag any individuals (bit of a slip that)

....bag any individuals (bit of a slip that)

U15 through to u19, it should be the 12 best.
As red said, we are seeing prospects in these teams and not ready players.

Selection throughout jnrs is a real problem, paige for example couldn't make the vic side for sometime but was quickly picked up by the boomers and now she’s in the u19 WC side.

We also see players who have not done anything at ajc level go straight into Coe or Aus teams because of height alone or by last name.

Gordon as an eg did not do anything in sqjbc, was selected for qld, once again avg less than 1 bucket a game, gets selected to Coe based on height, gets selected for the n.t based on height, goes to asia champs, doesn’t play much, injured, back to Coe, next to no minutes, now gone. I see her as a player of the future but was not ready at the time.

With vlahov, no time in Perth, 2 pt avg over 2 u20 ajc, a couple of 20pt games in nbl1 in 2022 but now in the WC side after maybe 2/3 day camp.

Not sure who selected the side but I’d love to know why they were chosen.

It's strange logic to select "prospects" in these teams and programs when:

1. in reality, talent ID is a crapshoot;
2. it's not as if these athletes won't develop without these opportunities;
3. not selecting them puts pressure on the state bodies to do their jobs in developing and preparing these athletes; and
4. the accomplishment actually represents their ability. There's no guesswork around CoE-automatics, underskilled long and/or tall athletes etc: if you weren't selected, you weren't good enough.

Completely on the money Interpreter and Weedy

To make a national team, you have to be "good to go" - it reinforces the notion that selection is based 100% on merit, that this group of players - when combined - represent the strongest possible team Australia can field. I do not believe this is the case here. Our creed should be excellence in everything we do. We demand this of the players. But - for some reason - selectors get a rain check. I feel bad for those who missed out not because they weren't good enough, or had not sacrificed enough, but because of a paternal hunch (or some other criteria) by BA officials.

It's the system has been for decades, possibly forever, it’s crap and I agree with those who have said so.

Getting overlooked in a 2-3 day camp can happen, not even getting a call up to camp after months and years of good performances means someone is not doing their job properly.

watching nbl1 or state league you can see that many players have developed significantly since becoming wnbl DPs in 2022.


Not selected

Big V champiinship
Ananiev - 20 / 8 / 2 / 3 / 1 61 fg%, 41 3pt%, 83 ft%

Nbl1
Crawshaw - 16 / 8 / 1 / 2 / 1 / 45 fg%, 50 ft%
Twidale - 15 / 5 / 3 / 1 / 0 / 39 fg%, 62 ft%
Henderson - 12 / 7 / 5 / 1 / 0 / 41 fg%, 77 ft%
Rotunno - 15 / 4 / 3 / 1 / 0 / 34 fg%, 78 ft%
Simons 14 / 4 / 3 / 1 / 1 / 40 fg%, 58 ft%
Pitman - 12 / 4 / 2 / 1 / 0 / 46 fg%, 85 ft%
Dart - 12 / 4 / 2 / 1 / 0 / 40 fg%, 74 ft%


These stats are conparable with the best selected and argubly playing in better conferences. Brazel, Juffermans, Clark, Burrows


Puoch the only one who has seperated herself stats wise.
23 / 8 / 2 / 2 / 1 / 45 fg%, 71 ft%

The vlahov pick a real head scratcher for me.

"The vlahov pick a real head scratcher for me."

Certainly gives hope to all the other players out there who have shot less than 6% at a Nationals that they can still be selected.

Or 0 / 13 from 3pt line at last 2 Nationals.

Don't won’t to speculate, let’s see how she goes first.
Hopefully nothing to do with crawford.

I still can't work out how she got a gig at St Mary's either. Definitely her surname taking her places.

Heal did very well as a freshman last year in college, be interesting to see how she fits in.

It's going to be interesting to see who takes the threes on this roster (and who makes them, obviously). Not *everybody* can feast in the paint.

all the highly rated power forwards not even getting called into camp is suspicious. Anyone in the 6'2-6’3 range were not called up apart from those at Coe. None from nbl1, none from ncaa. The camp was full of guards, sfs(around 6’0) and cs but no pfs.
The list comes out for those who made u16 asia camp in all states, webpages and Facebook and Twitter but not for u19 WC camp a week prior? Not a peep.

The matchup between the Coe and Sydney the other day showed who is ready and who is not.

Gray avg 5/2/3 in 25 mins, Twidale, Rotunno and Henderson doing alot better.
Crawshaw was very good 1v1 vs Coe
Ananiev still killin it in big v also

Mens u19 semis

France beat usa 89-86
Spain beat turkey 83-51

France v Spain for gold/silver
USA vs Turkey for bronze/4th




Asian teams - not great...

Japan vs Canada for 7th
China vs Slovenia for 9th
South Korea vs Brazil for 11th
Lebanon vs Hungary for 15th

Spain win the u19 WC vs France in an overtime thriller 73-69.
Turkey upset usa for bronze 84-70.

We are seeing a shift in the game for sure.
Spain, France, Canada and Serbia just an endless amount of talent coming through.

"Shift in the game", Weedy? Because the USA came 4th? Or Turkey 3rd?

I haven't seen any of the games or read anything other than what’s in this thread, but here’s my 5 cents worth. I assume you’re referring to the USA case.
- The USA girls were playing FIBA ball, which needs some getting used to.
- They’ve been brought up in an iso style environment which is geared to making the WNBA, and they’re close enough to the WNBA draft age-wise that they’ll be doing their best to be elite in that style.
- Europe is heading more towards flexibility and position-less basketball, whereas the USA seems more hung up on the strict 1 - 5 philosophy.
- They will still be very skilled players and gifted athletes individually; the issue is how well they combine in a different playing environment.

Yes, this particular USA group didn’t get it done, but I wouldn’t say that the USA has been overtaken until they miss the finals consistently. They’ve won every final bar one since 2005.

Men not women.

F..k, what was I thinking? (I think my arguments are gender-neutral though.)

You were probably thinking that this thread is about U19 Women

Not sure you can link Turkey with top tier womens basketball. They can dream about beating the u.s, won't happen anytime soon.