From: speednut@csource.oz.au (mark jose)
Newsgroups: aus.sport
Subject: Australian Basketball and the Olympics
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 21:51:15 +1000
Reply-To: speednut@csource.oz.au
Organization: Unique Computing Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia

G'day All,
 
               AUSTRALIAN BASKETBALL AND THE OLYMPICS
               --------------------------------------
 
If this subject has already been covered previously then I apologise, but
please indulge me for a moment.
 
In the Melbourne "Herald Sun" newspaper (13/8/92) was an article titled
"Hurley's future in limbo". This article briefly discussed the "impending"
coach swaps within the Australian Institute of Sport basketball programs,
and the desire of Hurley to be involved in "the future programs of the
junior and senior teams" ... "in administration or ... in a coaching
capacity".
 
Earlier on in the article he states that the team that went to Barcelona
was the "best ever" assembled. And here is where I would like to draw your
attention to some of my observations during the Barcelona Olympic
Basketball competition.
 
I believe the team we sent over to Barcelona was one of the best, but
surely there were poor decisions made due to the lack of depth in
Australian basketball. For Hurley to say it was the "best ever", is a sad
indictment on his coaching prowess.
 
During the entire tournament, the coaching was average to poor, and thus
the responsibility must rest with the selection criteria and the coaches
themselves. Head Coach Hurley's inability to make the right decisions was
evident in the game against Croatia. Although it was expected to be a hard
game, with the possible demise of Australia from the competition it was
never anything but a farce.
 
While not going into too many specifics, the fact that Hurley didn't
settle the team down by allowing a set number of players to be his
"leading 5" was a big factor in the demise of the Australian team. A
classic case was when Loggins was shooting well and had just taken two
foul shots when he pulled him off! You don't take a man off when he is
"running hot", you take another guy off that's not giving you good minutes!
 
Now, sure, I understand that players have to be rested but every 5
minutes? It seemed that Hurley was resigned to the fact that Australia
would lose right from the first tip off and that he was determined to
give as many players "court time" as he could. (Did he forget Shane
Heal though?!)
 
How then can Croatia play using only TWO off the bench until 10 minutes
before the end? Were the Australians unfit? Hardly. Were they overwhelmed
by the Croatian offense? Yes, maybe. Why? They were never able to settle
down as a "team". How did he try to counter this? Swap our own offense and
hope to out shoot them. Sheez!!!
 
Really, never a more lacklustre coaching effort has been seen by
Australian Olympic Basketball supporters. I admired Hurley and the efforts
he had put into the Australian Boomers but now I think it is time for him
and Barry Barnes to step aside and let more professional, more astute
coaches take their place. It is obvious that we were down on man-power,
having to select Sengstock and Borner and that players like Vlahov and
Dorge were off their game and Gaze was continually guarded as soon as he
approached the 3 point line, certainly did not help our medal prospects.
But, again, you can't rely on A. Gaze to continuously get the team out of
trouble.
 
One player that did surprise me was Luc Longley. Every game (almost
without fail) he would get into foul trouble. Now I realise that a lot of
the rebounding and defensive fouls were extremely "airy-fairy", but once
you get caught you should be smart enough to try to stop doing it. I can
see in Longley a lot of potential because he is very agile for such a tall
player but like the rest of the Australian team he is not aggressive
enough and dare I say it, not "smart" enough. Everyone could see the
referees were fouling any centre that used his hands to fend off the
opposing centre. It was ok to use your hips and legs, but not your hands.
Longley failed to grasp this - but then again, maybe the coaching staff
should have told him!
 
Gaze and Loggins were the only two who really tried to be aggresive when
taking the ball to the hoop. A couple of Boomers play positions called
"Power Forwords". I wonder if they realise what this means, maybe they
think PF means "Pussy-Cat Forward". Maybe they should study Barkley's
moves to get any idea of how to play a power game.
 
Don't get me wrong, I am sure that the guys tried hard and that some put
in 100% but a few were just average in their play making. One sad thing
was the lack of shooters. Borner, Vlahov, Longley, Dorge, Sengstock all
share court time with Gaze, Loggins, Smyth and co, and should be able to
shoot from long distance. Maybe they may not make 2 out of 4, but they
should, on average, be 50% or better.
 
It was obvious in both the Lithuania and Croatia games that they knew
these guys couldn't shoot from further than 5 foot so they continually
left Borner, Vlahov, Dorge, Longley and Sengstock open for a shot if they
had the ball from 8 foot and beyond. Perhaps this has more to do with the
make-up of the NBL and how they go for "imports" to "get the job done".
This is analogous to bringing in migrant labour to fill the role of
carpenters because we don't have any available at the moment. It solves
the short term problem, but does nothing to encourage "apprenticeships"
but moreover leads to the continual need to import to keep the "standard"
up. Perhaps we have to look at encouraging more Australian basketballers
to play the "American way" rather than importing Americans. We have to
take the time to foster our younger players and not just mould them into
the positions where they play second fiddle to American imports.
 
And while I am at it, let me say that the NBL is not the right breeding
ground for future world competitive basketballers. We have to relax our
rules on non-play hampering fouls and encourage more body work and
power playing.
 
Cheers.

.........................................................
mark jose
speednut@csource.oz.au  Unique Computing Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
The opinions expressed above are that of the author only.
Newsgroups: aus.sport