Mind my ignitance but how do you land at 4 points and doesn't that change once slovenianplays Germsmy?

We lost to Germany by 3

If we beat Slo by 4, we're +1 in games between Aus/Ger/Slo

In a 3 way tie we would go through

If everyone wins by 3, it becomes a "points for" amongst those games

Our two biggest matches outside of our own are:

Spain vs Canada. We finish second which is the likeliest outcome. We play Spain who are more beatable IMO. We then go on to get crushed by USA but at least we have a rose gold medal chance.


Slovenia vs Germany. As above a slight Slovenia win will allow us to have the opportunity to get to the top of the pool with the much nicer path to the final.

There's no doubt that the Slovenia match is our biggest though. We need to smash them and then leave it up to the basketball gods to decide in the Germany Slovenia game that will follow.

and if all three teams end up with a 85-82 win each, meaning both a tied points differential and points for, then it goes to overall points difference in all games played.

Mods should snip a lot of the Japan game thread and put it in here.

So ideally we want Slovenia to beat Germany by a little bit, and Australia to beat Slovenia by amount plus one to four points depending on how little Slovenia beat Germany.

People say smashed by USA but I am not sure they're that good. I'd probably take them before Canada right now. USA have largely beaten easy teams we would also beat. Think we wouldn't best Tall Blacks by 20?

So ideally we want Slovenia to beat Germany by a little bit, and Australia to beat Slovenia that amount plus 4 points.

^ correction

Yeah that would be the best-case scenario. The narrowest margins for us are Slovenia wins by 3 v Germany, we beat Slovenia by 4 and the points split is:

Australia +1
Germany 0
Slovenia -1

So ideally we want Slovenia to beat Germany by a little bit, and Australia to beat Slovenia by amount plus one to four points depending on how little Slovenia beat Germany.

If we were to have squeaky bum time on Sunday due to SLO leading GER, after narrowly defeating them on Friday by one-to-three points as above, then the magic number to qualify would be seven - the sum of our tiny 1-3 point margin advantage on SLO plus the minimum number of points SLO would have to defeat GER by to put us through.

Another consideration is the amount of points we put up against Slovenia.

Let's say AUS-SLO and GER-SLO both end in three point margins, like AUS 82-85 GER did, in favour of AUS and SLO respectively then all three teams will have a points differential of +3 which goes to the 'points for' tiebreaker.

So we would want to score over 85 in this scenario.

Yeah I made the mistake of doing that math and now have a headache as a result.

Would love to beat Slovenia handily on Friday and the be comfortable with wanting Slovenia to beat Germany to reside #1 in the group.

That scenario, Australia would feel very good about themselves IMO

I work with numbers all day at work and this post is giving me a headache... I will just sit and hope we win by a large number against Slo, but why am I not confident about this game?

I have the least amount of confidence in this boomers team that I have had for any boomers team in the last decade. If we can smack Slovenia it will go a long way to restoring that. It's definitely a danger game though. Any team with Luka is it is dangerous.

Less confidence in this team than the 2014 team? Now that group was a roller-coaster ride.

It's about expectations.
We won an Olympic bronze medal in 2021. Expectations for the Basketball World Cup have risen.
We also expected synergy between top veteran players and talented young players.
However, I started to feel a little disappointed at the camp.
The coaching staff's team composition, strategy, and tactics were all below expectations.
Rather than relying too much on veterans, we hoped that young players would show improvement and become the center of the team.
Of course, winning against a top team is important, but there was disappointment that we still didn't see what we expected and wanted to see. That can be seen as the expectation.

The 2021 medal was the culmination of a long, successful era. From memory only Spain and Australia made the top four in 2016, 2019 & 2021, to show how good our team was.

Now we're transitioning from that era to the new one. I think the program is doing a good job of that, but we're not going to just roll out like a near-finished product like the past three tournaments, especially when losing Landale late. There's learning happening on the run.

They're still capable of making the top 4 and medalling, but that's a very tough thing to do at any major tournament. Hopefully this team can fix some of the issues that have popped up and get the wins needed in the second round.

That's a good comment.

(In the 2021 Olympics, Spain was eliminated in the quarterfinals.)

I think the fact there is a bit of a rebuild going on is a fair argument but at rhe same time, while they're talking gold medals, they very well could have chosen the team different to keep more of our experience. Goildiny couldn't have been cut for Delly? Couldn't have Baynes involved? I mean they did choose this route and now they're playing a bit of victim when it comes to criticism.

There also would be less of a rebuild going on if we didn't push out the coach to suck up to a guy who isn't even in the team.

"(In the 2021 Olympics, Spain was eliminated in the quarterfinals.)"

Thanks Patty, you're spot on. That means the Boomers were the only team in the top four in 2016, 2019 & 2021, which is quite an achievement. Let's hope we can make it four in a row! Three more wins.

As has been pointed out, it's about finding better consistency within games because our best basketball is certainly good enough.

There's no publicity or media $$$ if you mention the word 'rebuild’, so BA would never use it. After all, they’ve got a lot of jobs to protect LOL.

But I think you nailed it, ME and kobe

Yeah I made the mistake of doing that math and now have a headache as a result.

I work with numbers all day at work and this post is giving me a headache.

The players aren't using the word rebuild either because it's not, it's transitioning in some new pieces. The players firmly believe they can win gold, and that's a great thing.