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In the early hours of tomorrow morning our National Team suits up against a higher ranked Czech Rep side in what will likely determine the top place in our repechage pool.
We’ll have a fight in our hands in this one but we’re a plucky unit and we’ll be giving it our best crack. A win here should push us a little deeper inside the top 20 sides in the world, which is amazing given the number of managers we have operating in Aus.

I’ll re-emphasise my earlier post here - if we get through this match, in order to have success against the top ranked sides we have to work together on game shape between 50 and 75 minutes per week is a rough guide, but it varies from player to player.
If you want to play your man 100 minutes per week, that’s your call, but his chances of getting minutes in the national team will probably suffer due to the decline in game shape- unless you plan to train game shape.

Game starts 5:30am AEDST. Let’s get after it!

Well, we gave it a crack but some slick shooting from the Czech Rep side from long range brought us undone in the end, going down by 12 points.
Given the majority of our side was in respectable game shape or lower and the majority of their side was in proficient or strong that's probably to be expected.
It's going to make it very, very tough to earn a spot in the World Cup from here (would need a miracle really).

A couple of learnings. Outside D is more important than ever now that the new Game Engine has improved the chances of long range shooters. If you want to get a player in the side as a guard they have to be 19 or above in OD (preferably 20). Even to break into the side as a SF you either need to be 18 or above at this stage with very strong ID as well or effectively be a PF with 16 or above OD. But subsequent to this is passing. Our opponents this morning moved the ball really well. I've felt for a while that we don't value passing outside of the PG position highly enough. Ideally it would be good if all of our players had a little bit of passing, but to be a PG in the side 16 is the minimum I think and it would be great to see our SGs with at least 14 as well. Even getting around the 12 mark for a SF would be great, but certainly 10 or above.

And, of course, game shape. I'm fairly confident our opponents collectively trained game shape last week to get to the level they were in the second week after a reset. It is that sort of team effort towards getting the job done that separates the top sides in the world from the middle tier. If you want your guy playing National level it is essential you look after his minutes - again, as a rough guide, between 50 and 75 minutes per week is usually around the mark but it varies from player to player. Typically if you are training your player 48 minutes in the position you are training and then coming off the bench in a second game and not playing in the third is about perfect, of if you are not training the player still (older player) two starts per week and no minutes in the third game often is ok, unless you guy is getting 40 minutes per game, then you have to monitor it.

I'm always up for a conversation about how to elevate this team so either chat here or via direct BB Mail if you have ideas of a player you think should be in the team.

One more game to come in this pool - let's finish this one with a win and see what happens.

Coach Deano

I really want to encourage any managers who feel they have a player who could make the National Team in the future to do a cut and paste of his skills and BB Mail them through to me so I can stay on top of how he is developing and potentially help you with a training plan to give him the best chance of making the team.
We have a really nice squad coming together at the moment but there is certainly depth behind it. I think the key for us to continue to improve as a nation is to make sure we are capitalising on that potential for the seasons ahead.

And, just to hammer home the point - game shape. It's very hard to consistently pick a player if they are playing 90+ minutes every week.

We find ourselves in the Consolation Cup and with an interesting draw.
The first goal is to overcome the 0-2 start we get from coming in from the Repechage and to try and push for a spot in the knockout bracket.
We've got some good kids knocking on the door, with a new guard cracking in for his first game last weekend.

We finished the Repechage 2-1 to finish second in our pool with a solid 132-84 win over Egypt.
It was a very even, solid team performance which made giving the votes tough, so there's a few guys who were stiff.

3: Matuszkiewicz (17 points, 4 assists, 2 boards and a steal and a points diff of +35 in his debut game - very solid)
2: Helo (21 points, 4 assists, 2 boards and a steal and a points diff of +13)
1: McFlynn (15 points, 11 boards, 2 assists and a points diff of +36)

In the end I used the player ratings to separate these three.

We have a game against Guatamala Monday night at 8pm Australian time. We've had some game shape issues in recent weeks - here's hoping our managers can get a good run with their player minutes this week so we can start this Consolation Cup strongly.

Quick update to our last game, two of our current players moved onto a all time top-10 list off the back of that game, with Homer Dawes now sitting 10th in rebounds all time for Australia and Du Hongjing 9th in assists. They hoping Australian captain Dwayne McFlynn, who is on the all time games top-10 list with 115 and sits third on all time rebounding.

On a side note, I’m chipping away on a side project to collate a comprehensive data base of all time Aussie National Team player stats that should allow us to compare shooting percentages, how often guys fouled, who was the best 3 point shooter... if the data is in the game I’m trying to get into into a spreadsheet. There’s a bit of back tracking to do but I hope by the end of summer I’ll have something in place that can be easily updated each season to allow us to rank every single player who’s ever stepped on the court for Australia’s National side, not just the top 10s. I’m over half way, about 20 seasons to go.

I’m wondering whether this might lead to an Aussie National Hall of Fame where we induct no more than two players per season for services to the National Team. We could kick start it with a larger batch of initial inductees to catch up on the almost 50 seasons of players so far.

What do you guys think would make eligibility requirements? Min 50 games perhaps? Retired from National side at least 1 full season before can be nominated? Feel free to chuck in some ideas.

Last edited by Deano25 at 01/05/2021 13:25:03

Jackson mansfield, bogan,hargreaves

I think Mansfield for certain is a no brainer, his record for assists isn’t likely to ever get broken and he had such longevity - that’s a LOT of games. The other two are certainly popping up in the data I’m crunching, too. What do think about the criteria?

Im just thinking of early season guys that where mainstays amd contribitued so well i can think of a few others i think scoggins and rudolph radford for bigs should be there aswell

I think a few players from our teams during our golden period abould be in there aswell as they were apart of our strongest finishing teams when user bade was also at it heighest making it more impressive

Yeah, Radford is another no brainer, definitely.
But at this stage what I’m thinking is if we can as a community suggest some guidelines for selection it might be something we can implement from the start of next season maybe?

I just think there’s some potential here to spark some discussion about the National program, generate some interest and hopefully buy in from more managers, which helps our program overall.

Great suggestions from you, cheers mate.