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.