Aussie Basketball Discussion

[koberulz]

Boomers managed to stick with the US for 38 minutes, then lost by 33.

[shadowgrin]

Watched the game and I think it's the Aussie broadcast and commentators, Duran? and Sanford? iirc.
lol at them saying Kobe likes to share the ball first while LeBron likes to shoot first. Also saying Deron Williams was known as a defensive player.

[koberulz]

Doesn't sound like the commentary I remember. Were they talking about Kobe's shooting slump being like a really soft bed? If not, it wasn't the Australian team.

[shadowgrin]

The commentators talked more about the Australian team than the US. The broadcast even showed that kangaroo mascot a lot of times lol.

And consistent coverage of the Aussies women team. Not complaining though, just keep playing Lauren Jackson and it will be fine.

[The X]

Aussie commentators would've be Gaze & somebody else. You didn't see the Aussie commentators shadow, not sure who you saw.

[shadowgrin]

Must be from them dirty Brits. Explains the accent and too much focus on their former prisoners.

[koberulz]

Aussie commentators would've be Gaze & somebody else. You didn't see the Aussie commentators shadow, not sure who you saw.

Pretty sure he didn't see any commentators.

John Casey did play-by-play. It's pretty easy to tell if it's him or not, simply count the number of times you hear the phrases "user-friendly roll," "non-preferred left hand," "only _____ has more in that category," "adds another two," "peels off the triple," "gets the finishing touches," and "__ points in arrears."

You can identify Gaze by his habit of agreeing with his partner starting with "it is," regardless of whether that's correct in the circumstances. "___ is playing well." "It is." "You'd hope to see more of _____." "It is." And so on.

[Andrew]

The final score wasn't a good indication of how well the Boomers played...well, for about 35 minutes or so of the game, at any rate. A couple of turnovers and it went south very quickly there in the fourth but other than that they did a great job hanging with the USA. That run at the beginning of the third quarter was great to watch, crazy to think they could've had the lead at that point if not for missing so many free throws and easy ones around the basket. In any event, I'm glad I caught it live.

[koberulz]

The final score wasn't a good indication of how well the Boomers played

Agreed. Would've liked for them to keep it under 20, but they definitely should have at least kept it under 27 and been the second-closest team to the US in the tournament to date. Instead, they went down by the most they've ever lost to the US by.

crazy to think they could've had the lead at that point if not for missing so many free throws and easy ones around the basket.

They missed seven layups in the first quarter. They'd missed seven free-throws midway through the first as well.

The officiating was horrendous, too. Soft calls galore at both ends, but special mention has to go to the two fouls called on Brad Newley about five seconds apart for...uh...

[Andrew]

The USA were running up the score a bit at the end there, too.

[shadowgrin]

That Joe Ingles wasn't bad at all either. That now makes 2 of the Aussie players that I know, him and Bogut.

[Andrew]

Patty Mills?

Ingles definitely was one of their best in the tournament. Needs to knock down his free throws though, but of course that goes for the entire team.

[koberulz]

Ingles and Delly have certainly increased their chances of playing in the NBA.

The Opals ended up going down to the US women by a far more respectable amount, after sticking with them for much less of the game, which just makes the Boomers result all the more disappointing.

[shadowgrin]

Patty Mills?

Not until one of you Aussies edit his Wiki page and just refer to him as Australian instead of Indigenous Australian.

[koberulz]

Opals take bronze, Foxtel changes the channel of the women's gold medal game at the last minute so I end up recording two hours of boxing, then kills my signal so I can't watch the replay. Hopefully it comes back on within the next five hours and I can catch the next one, in the meantime I have to somehow avoid spoilers.

[koberulz]

...and it won't be back until tomorrow night, which mean's I'll miss the men's gold medal game as well.

What a fucking waste of money.

[Andrew]

That sucks. When I first got Foxtel way back in 2004, either my card or the first box I had (can't remember which it was now) crapped out within a few hours of it being installed, so I had to wait a couple of days to start getting anything out of it. They fixed it for free, but didn't offer any further compensation.

[koberulz]

The really stupid thing is that there's a replay of the men's game at 8PM, so if the outage does only last until 7, and the women's game had been on the right channel in the first place, I'd have been able to watch everything.

Even stupider is the news ticker above the London 2012 TV Guide, which has informed me that the US men won.

[shadowgrin]

Even stupider is the news ticker above the London 2012 TV Guide, which has informed me that the US men won.

That's not stupid. News outlets can only wait so long before they spoil the results of an event for you.

[koberulz]

It's not a news outlet, it's a TV guide.

[shadowgrin]

With the intent of keeping viewers up to date, which a TV guide does. They can't halt or keep secret the occurrence of events just so people who forgot to watch an event can remain in blissful ignorance.

[The X]

Just about finished Andrew Gaze's biography that I borrowed from lib. Average read but he did touch on that he didn't agree with change from winter to summer season & he thought in hindsight the move from Channel 7 to Channel 10 in 1991 backfired. Other interesting tidbit are he didn't get paid a cent from the Melbourne Tigers for almost 3 years late '90's, early '00's when they were in dire financial situation.

[koberulz]

What on earth did he think could be achieved by competing with the AFL & NRL? And which biography is it, anyway? I've got On The Road With Andrew Gaze, which doesn't mention any of that.

Meanwhile, Daniel Eade has put this up. It's really quite disturbing. The only thing worse than Eade's suggestions - which comprise mostly of doing the things that got the NBL into trouble in the first place - is the idiots posting on the page to suggest even more moronic ideas, like a three-import limit to allow better imports into the league (what?) and going back to winter, because as-is we compete with the AFL's pre-season.

Also, and somewhat unrelatedly, the West Coast Eagles are set to sign Mark Worthington.

[Andrew]

Other interesting tidbit are he didn't get paid a cent from the Melbourne Tigers for almost 3 years late '90's, early '00's when they were in dire financial situation.

Ouch. You know the league's in trouble when the marquee player isn't getting a cent of his contract. With that in mind, I can certainly appreciate why the league is currently hesitant to expand as they try to establish financial security across the board. It's a shame for those of us who'd like to see the league be more accessible and closer to home, but they're obviously in a tough spot and would like to avoid past mistakes. Can't fault for them that.

[The X]

What on earth did he think could be achieved by competing with the AFL & NRL? And which biography is it, anyway? I've got On The Road With Andrew Gaze, which doesn't mention any of that.

The Andrew Gaze Story: A Kid, a Ball, a Dream

He also mentions that NBL shouldn't have contracted the league with teams like Geelong exiting. He said he was okay with playing for free for Tigers as endorsements more than covered living costs.