So many bigs.... Ridiculous.
No smith, Melbourne or Rocci.

Getting the ball over half way will be difficult…

Mate, Kristy and Sami and Allen can handle the point. I don't mind no Melb/Rocci/Heal. Maley the flavor of the month. Tess/George probably their last stand. But Blicavs and Darbin over Smith is questionable. Maybe LJ taking the young players opportunity. Either way this is our team, they should make the gold medal game .. Go Opals!!

My Starting 5
Wallace
Whitcomb
Allen
Talbot
Magbegor

Actual Starting 5

Whitcomb
Allen
Talbot
George
Magbegor

Allen handle the point....

It'll be more like

Whitcomb - Madgen
Talbot - Wallace
Allen - Blicavs - Maley
Magbegor - Garbin
George - Tolo - Jackson

George playing some 4
Wallace third pg
Maley or Allen perhaps some sg

Reminiscent of Ian Stacker's line-ups early in the 1997 U23 WC.

LJ is the goat and I assume she's there to reinforce 'team' culture but the 12th spot should have been Melbourne.
Point guard of the future, learning opportunity, great team mate.

Natural position wnbl or wnba / Opals position


Whitcomb 2-1 / 1
Wallace 2-1 / 1-2
Madgen 2-3 / 2-1
Talbot 3 / 2
Allen 3-4 / 3-2
Blicavs 4-3 / 3-4
Maley 4-3 / 3-2
Garbin 4 / 4
Magbegor 5-4 / 4-5
George 5-4 / 4-5
Tolo 5 / 5
Jackson 5 / 5


Always difficult when you are playing 1 position at club level and having to play a different position and style for your country.

Its a talented team, but yeah the problem as usual is lack of ball handling. I think this will mean we'll struggle in big moments. Hope I'm wrong.

On a selfish note, getting one more chance to see LJ play in person is something I'm looking forward to

Maybe the aim is too just let japan beat us with speed n pressure and try and bully the euro teams with our size at every position.

9 players 6'2 or above. Really only 1 competent ball handler on the team.

And too think sandy took smith over Magbegor in the draft...
Barely played at Phoenix, cut from Indiana and now dropped for Garbin.

Would've like to see Melbourne in the team, but she'll get future opportunities. We have been blessed this season in Ballarat to see Melbourne tear up the NBL1 week in/week out... and seems like a delightful person on top of it

On playing ability right now it's a pretty fairly selected team, but damn it is unbalanced. Like even moreso than usual.

I can't really criticise the lack of Heal/Rocci/Melbourne/Reid/Nicholson because none of them grabbed their opportunities.
But I still think we should have included one more guard, even though no one clearly deserved the spot, because it is too risky to be this undermanned in the backcourt. Even if Sami wasn't 34 and coming off a WNBA season this would be asking too much of her.

The Japan game is going to be excruciating.

The pressure to the backcourt during that japan game will be overwhelming.

Cayla George is going to be doing a lot of ball handling that game I think.

I think Japan know that and adjustments will be made to stop that.
Japan A team is a different beast to the friendlies.

isn't cayla george pregnant ???

Nup, someone else carrying the baby.

Not surprised that Rocci missed out... too many turnovers. Smith and Melbourne found themselves squeezed out. Sandy really has never rated Smith so she will need to bounce back or she won't make the Olympics. I thought Cayla was pregnant too but she clarified on insta saying she isn't pregnant and someone else is carrying the baby on their behalf.

This team is big and even if Jackson plays 5 mins a game having her amazing attitude and grit around the team is awesome. Seeing her play with Ezi, Tolo and George..... can't wait!

Game 1 France
Game 2 Mali
Game 3 Serbia
Game 4 Canada
Game 5 Japan

We should beat Mali easily, the rest are 50/50 games in pool play.

Anything less than semi finals and the whole coaching staff has got be let go.
Atm you have Stirling overseeing a bunch of mates who Inturn employed more family/mates.

HC Brondello
LA Lange
A Goriss
A Chambers
S Goriss
M Dykstra(Fallon)
P Mckay

Only outs have been the doctor and Chris Lucas.

With a team that big, are we going to be able to stop their fast breaks reliably?

No is the answer.
Lucky not many teams play at full tilt.

Main stream media love Lauren Jackson,
moreso than Smith.

More Bums on seats.

Team seems a bit 'tall'. But gosh they better win or some heads are surely going to roll!

The next excuse will be interesting.., we've had covid as the first failure, chemistry as the second failure, preparation as the third failure and recently toxic Cambage is the reason why we’ve done poorly.

Roster tracker


https://www.fiba.basketball/womensbasketballworldcup/2022/news/roster-tracker-for-sydney

average age is 29.5 yrs, cant see them finishing anywhere, no runners at all

Seems quite a few teams have injuries.

No epoupa for France
No Pellington, ekunwe, ayim for Canada
No Park for Korea

Interested to see who's missing from the other unannounced teams.

USA and Serbia look strong

Good result for the Opals just now in the WNBA
Aces defeat Storm 3-1. Magbegor & Talbot can come home.

Looks like Melbourne and Rocci are the reserves and smith is not one.
Still find it Crazy how smith was chosen by sandy at Phoenix and got no gametime, then reduced gametime for opals, now no more and Ezi who wasn't chosen by sandy is now a lock as opals starter.

Phoenix made an error by drafting Smith instead of Magbegor. Sandy likely had a fair amount of input into that decision.
There's nothing crazy about what has happened since that day. Magbegor has continued to develop and seize her opportunities, while Smith hasn't.

Garbin over smith though, questionable...
Neither were needed for the upcoming WC. Needed another guard.

We've got like 7-8 players that primarily play 4-5 spots, one of Whitcomb, Madgen or Wallace tire or get injured, screwed….

Yeah, and I think pretty much everyone felt the same way the moment that the 12 was announced. It's such a strange positional (im)balance.

I don't have high hopes for this tournament. At all.

Given stirlings relationship with sandy, I can't see her ever getting moved on until she decides she’s had enough. No excuses left after Tokyo and 3 straight years of poor results.
Silver in 2018 the only legit accomplishment on sandys opals resume.
After that WC, 21 wins - 15 losses to date.

Tess Madgen was today announced as Opals captain. Congrats to her!

Article Link

Should be a good captain, but a good pg?

WC chances have certainly improved for the opals.

U.S players playing in the wnba finals look unlikely to make it in time.
Starting centre for France gruda injured in lead up games, also no epoupa.
Surprisingly Japan bringing in an inexperienced young backcourt, no machida, motohashi, fujioka, Miyazaki the only one remaining, 3 new u21 coming in, hirashita, todo, yamamoto
Canada not at fall strength.p, both in the backcourt and frontcourt
Korea has lost its wnba starting centre.

Only full strength sides
Belgium
Serbia
Pueto Rico
Bosnia

Unannounced teams
China

Considering the above how do you rate Australia's chances of finishing first in its group?

Not great but I do think they'll get out of the pool now.
A few weeks ago I would have said 4th in the pool or 5th and out of the tournament.
Now 2nd to 4th is likely.

5th or 6th would be the end of the coaching staff and half the players n.t careers.

Genuinely asking but why do you think that? We seem to have a pretty good team and as you mentioned France, Canada & Japan are missing some key players. Not to mention we have home court advantage.

Tokyo - Sydney roster

Mitchell(G) - Whitcomb(G)
-upgrade imo, both offense and defense
Lavey(G) - Wallace(G)
-downgrade ball handling, even defending, up offense
Ebzery(G) - Maley(F)
-upgrade defense/rebounding, even offense, downgrade shooting/handling
Madgen - Madgen
Talbot - Talbot
Allen - Allen
Blicavs - Blicavs
Smith(F) - Garbin(F)
-downgrade defense/offense/rebounding, upgrade perimeter shooting
Magbegor - Magbegor
George - George
Tolo - Tolo
Ohea(F) - Jackson(C)
-hard to say... both leaders, Ohea came up big in Tokyo, jackson tbd


We've replaced
2 point guards with 2 combo guards
1 combo guard with 1 combo forward
1 power forward/centre with 1 power forward
1 small forward with 1 centre

Opals warmup match vs Puerto Rico
81-51

Odd seeing Melbourne get playing time. Shouldn't Sami, Tess and kristy being getting all the minutes?

Talbot and Magbegor on route.

Why wear out the older legs in a meaningless game?

Playing the 3 pgs chosen 13-14mins a game each at the point doesn't seem like alot to me, even in the lead up games.
If that’s too much for older legs, they should have added a 4th ball handler to the actual roster, most coaches would have since they looked spent after 3 warm up games vs Japan or the 3 WC qualifiers with more rest days inbetween.
These 3 players will be expected to play 20-30 min a game, potentially 8 times in 10 days.
Wouldn’t suprise me if they make a late change to the roster...

Reid and Mangakahia are the form points Guards in the Country at the moment by a long way , I am guessing that Melbourne is a good kid that is nice to have around the place.

She's the only reserve for the squad, clearly highly rated.

"Playing the 3 pgs chosen 13-14mins a game each at the point doesn't seem like a lot to me, even in the lead up games.
If that's too much for older legs, they should have added a 4th ball handler to the actual roster, most coaches would have since they looked spent after 3 warm up games vs Japan or the 3 WC qualifiers with more rest days in-between.
These 3 players will be expected to play 20-30 min a game, potentially 8 times in 10 days.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they make a late change to the roster..."

if Opals PGs cant play more than 15 mins in a game of that standard then they actually have no right to be in a national side, the óld legs'are just that - OLD, bigs included in Jackson Tolo and George. Ok they can handle minutes in NBL1 and appear to be dominating, but seriously Sandie will have her team manager Fallon handing out Zimmer frames and resuscitation masks at this rate. Don't expect any changes BA is filled with dinosaurs,with the main one in Sterling, she really needs to go.
And sorry Melbourne is a lovely kid with a bright future, but she's like fart in a bottle, needs to mature a lot more for this level game.

Jade needs to be put in a cool dark room for a few years to improve her aroma, colour & mouthfeel.

China beat Aus in second warm up match.
70-63

Aus beat France in third warmup game.
92-88

Apparently all 3 guards have been very poor in the first 3 games.

Aus beat Belgium 65-61 in fourth warmup game.

Canada

Natalie Achonwa
Kayla Alexander
Laeticia Amihere
Bridget Carleton
Shay Colley
Nirra Fields
Mael Gilles
Taya Hanson
Sami Hill
Aislinn Konig
Phillipina Kyei
Kia Nurse



USA

Ariel Atkins
Shakira Austin
Kahleah Copper
Chelsea Gray
Sabrina Ionescu
Brionna Jones
Betnijah Laney
Jewell Loyd
Kelsey Plum
Breanna Stewart
Alyssa Thomas
A'ja Wilson

Marine Johannes is a huge out for France

That sucks. She's so good to watch.

USA bringing the best of the best....
Probably only ogbunwwale missing.

The absolute best of the best would include Diggins, Parker, Griner, Delle Donne & arguably Fowles IMO, but regardless it's a damn good team.
Normally having 5 players arriving at the last minute straight off a tough finals series would take its toll, but I doubt it will bother this group too much.

Hopefully the battle for 2nd spot is a good one.