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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 1/5/2021 1:25:03 PM

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.

Maybe a min game played as a start mmayve in the min 5or6 seasons on team i dont know what a good number would be i know alot of us managers who have been around awhile or played the game on and off like myself would also havent certain players that we still remember from teams. Maybe stats aswell but i dont know how youd work it we have some great hybrid sf ect that never padded stats but were great players

The game offered up some new stat lines from around season 12 or 13 from memory, but I'm collating everything from each game, including ratings, points diff while on court, fouls, minutes played, shooting percentages etc... I do think there are some guys on our top-10 lists that looking at their sheer volume look amazing, but from what I've seen when you break it down a little they seem to have had some very good runs in the side, so I think to be fair it'd be good to get some discussion around any inductees. In most seasons players who play each game should get 13 or 14 games. A good run in the side in modern days is around 4 seasons (it seemed in the first 15 seasons or so some guys played much longer). So I'd suggest 50 games as a minimum is a starting point for the discussion and then various managers can have their say on it once they are nominated.

Who did you manage before the Cellar Dwellars?

We made a solid start to our Consolation Cup run on Monday, picking up a 62-point win over Guatemala. After coming from the repechage we started with an 0-2 start in the Cup, so points difference will likely be important to move from these initial stages to the playoff bracket - 62 points is a good start.

Our captain, Dwayne "The Manster" McFlynn continued to carve his name into the records on the night.
Our longest serving current player, he moved to equal 5th on the all time games list for Australia with 116. Currently sitting third on the all time rebounds tally (988 off the back of 10 boards on Monday night) he also moved into the top-10 for all time scorers for our country with his 16 points taking him to 1253 for his career.
Hat's off to his long time trainer Whitewind also to the now defunct Whompas Donkey's for drafting him at number 1 in season 37 - imagine if he'd held onto him? What might have been.

Our bench really came to play in this game and in a really even team performance we had 4 double doubles on the night.
What was pleasing this week is we started to get some decent game shape around the squad - big thanks to all trainers with players around the mark and on the squad. Game shape makes a big difference in the big games and with more and more depth around the squad looking after your man's minutes is a good way of getting him game time.

We play Malta this week - who on the standings right now sit above us, so while our World ranking might be higher the fact is this is a game where winning helps us climb closer to that top-32 spot we need.
Right now we're 42nd but we have the second best points difference of any side in 1-2 game shape so another solid win this week might take us close.

Looking ahead the future of the Aussie squad is looking pretty good, we have great depth in guards coming through and our depth in bigs right now is strong, but we'll be looking for some more bigs in the 21-27 age bracket to develop further in the next few seasons. There are some great guys coming through the under-21 system in that area - if these guys continue on the future will be bright indeed.