I'm hoping, just certainly not convinced a lot will change.

Pretty shocking that Australia are $1.25 favourites given the abysmal display v Nigeria.

A loss probably means the end of the tournament for the opals.
Hopefully we come out firing.

Pretty shocking that Australia are $1.25 favourites given the abysmal display v Nigeria.

France are deeper.
I think Fathoux, Bernies and Lacan over Epoupa was a bad decision.

Opals ready to put 'embarrassing' loss behind them
Kane Pitman
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Still so careless with the ball

Indeed.

And missing layups

Early days, despite turnovers looking better.
I think opals match up well against Canada.

Good to see Sami knock down a couple early.

To much dribble, got move the ball. Only thing I have not enjoyed at the basketball is lack of shot clock till five seconds.

I would be starting Jackson for two reasons, 1) she gets strong rebounds and 2) she busts some heads.

I would never play whitcomb or melbourne together, they are the same outta control player

Man why the heck is Sami Whitcomb playing backup PG, clearly not capable aside from making open threes. Get her off ball.

Forgive my French (canadian) but fucking turnover after fucking turnover.

Sami on D is losing her man alot.

Oh boy. Ezi that was reeeally dumb

This is so hard to watch.

Ezi wtf was that foul. On 3 now.

To win, Gotta use Ezi/Smith/LJ superior inside & 3pt game.

Must shutdown Carleton shooting and let Canada ride on Nurse shooting

That's if turnovers stop and layups go in.

I'm not seeing any game plan against Canada, the opals look lost and appear to be confused. The coaches wise words are look after the ball, mine thought would have been let’s move the ball through some hands (seeing as we have no decent PG) and create some space in the lane for easier lay ups and open up some perimeter shooting.

I remember when the Opals were good. Wtf did Brondello do to them?

Same rubbish, broom needed

Love Tolo. She's the Nick Kay of the Opals. Absolute pro

Brondello has always promoted exp over youth.

Borlase should not be playing over Wallace.

Apparently youth is all that matters though

Borlase out of her depth

Tolo been solid.
Borlase nervous, not like her...

Why take an unnecessary step-back when no one is in front of you. Having no jump shot at this level from a guard is embarrassing.

Good call about Tolo being like Nick Kay. Just fundamentally sound and provides stability on both ends.

As she loses the ball...

Tolo is not fast and is not even a WNBA player. Why is she in the squad?

Old vets Tolo & George steadying the ship. Still a hot mess but showing some grit - a lead is a lead.

Don't understand Brondello’s rotation with LJ. First off the bench yet barely gets any minutes rest of half.

Because we only have 2 bigs in the wnba...

Exiting sarcasm mode though, thank goodness for Sami. I don't even want to contemplate what that half would have been without her.

Important contributions from the bench to steady the ship.

We need to do much better in the 2nd half though.

Somehow have the lead despite so many errors.
Canada making a lot of bad reads on the defensive end helping our cause.

Yeah, Canada's errors kinda helping to paper over the cracks of a substandard first half.

Good thing about group c is japan and Belgium will face each other with about -30 or 40 each I reckon.
China and PR also in big trouble.

Good for aus if we beat canada.

Worst game I've watched. Who ever go through next round isn’t meddling

Exiting sarcasm mode though

Sweet Caroline? *cringe*

This is the ugliest game I've seen since Perth Wildcats 66-23 Shanghai Sharks.

Neither team deserves to win.

Ezi does not look her usual self tonight. Need Seattle Ezi ASAP.
And just as I write that .. she picks up #4 :(

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.

WTF is this.

I'm flabbergasted by how little we appear to care about throwing the ball away.

One awful air ball each on back to back plays.

This is embarrassing.

I'm gonna throw up...

Can anyone list the valuable traits that Tess Madgen brings to the Opals? I'm struggling to come up with any...

I change my mind, brondello deserves to keep coaching the opals until 2028...

Samcro- Madgen - no turnovers. almost makes her starting 5

I'm sitting here wondering what the hell these coaches & teams were doing on their days off. Obviously not scouting the opposition or working on their game plans.

Takes her about 10 secs to decide what to do and another 10 if she's the primary pg.

mind you, it's easy to keep the turnovers down when you're willing to dribble the ball aimlessly for 23.9 seconds

Jackson/Tolo - one should be on at all times.

Borlase almost the only player who can create off the dribble.

"No threes" was the instruction in the timeout.

Brondello pissed.

"No threes" was the instruction in the timeout.

Masters team on at times

Yep, over 34 squad.

Maybe the worst game of basketball I've ever watched. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many missed layups. It’s just embarrassing. At least Nigeria was sometimes ok in the last one. These two teams look like they can’t really play at all.

Smith killing us, typical dumb fouls and poor defense, i am so surprised she can play in the WNBA, might say something about the standard of the WNBA.

Stop fouling.

Smith probably actually listens to reeves.

Not happy with sandy, picking her, never playing her and replacing her with Garbin.

Well done George, 4 big 3s tonight.

Oh Canada.

Yay, another missed layup
:/

Margin is closing

Let's fk it up with 2 mins to go, geez we were up by 13 with possession...

a win by 14 would be excellent

As bad as we've been ... man ... Canada have been every bit as sloppy

Nice Tolo.

Luuuuuc is a crack up. Keep em coming big fella

Weedy, yeah they really need a long athletic 3/4 with some smarts - missing Garbin

We good aslong as we don't get slaughtered by France.

Garbin is not a 3 but ok.

The vets have actually done well, Tolo, George, Whitcomb, Talbot, rest underwhelming

Vets have saved our arses big time in this one.

We have a smart & long 3. She's injured.

We good aslong as we don't get slaughtered by France.

No Wallace or Atwell today, next game maybe.

Give Atwell 30 seconds now, I say

Gonna be like Tokyo, make the 8 and lose big first game in?

I'm not sure what I just watched, except that it stunk and involved Canada.

need a defensive stop, so leave george in while Ezi sitting.. seems strange

Don't need this late, another stupid foul.

Melbourne almost unplayable, she cant handle the ball, only shoots layups - Rocci would have been better.

The team that played China would have played better.

Made that look difficult, we stink.
Could have been in the +, now -8.

Madgen calling for less dribbling is peak hypocrisy

Assuming France goes undefeated.

Opals need Nigeria to beat Canada.

or Canada to beat Nigeria by 22.

That last minute very costly.

The game v France is almost a must win now.

Where are all the posts saying get rid of the old vets?
Out defence won us that game, especially Sami. She was relentless.

"we have to take better care of the ball"....
20 turnovers

Out defence won us that game, especially Sami. She was relentless.

@Perthworld - bravo on the use of Terrance and Phillip *chefs kiss*

I blame the WNBA for the turnovers. Not enough practice games with the full team because of the ridiculous scheduling. They don't know each other

@hooping I disagree re: Melbourne. She's the only true PG and needs the bigs to actually roll hard to rim, they were so stationary in their on-ball. Better off with Tolo and Jackson at the 5 with Jade on floor.

Re: only layups - I put it down to coach instruction, there were plenty of opportunities for her to shoot the 3 when Canada went under screens and she didn't even look at the rim. Melbourne would pull the trigger every time in either WNBA or WNBL.

Doesn't help confidence when she gets dragged for errors, Madgen stays in after same errors and more of them. Dribbles the air out of ball and can't beat any defender 1v1

No one took more shots per minute than Melbourne & Borlase. They combined for 3/14 in their 24 minutes so maybe we shouldn't feel too disappointed that they didn't pull the trigger even more last night.
As for Melbourne making fewer errors than Madgen in that game, why even write a flat out lie like that? Other people with functioning eyes watched the game too, you realise?

Melbourne & Borlase are both the types of players who can snap straight back into killer mode, and let's hope one or preferably both of them do vs France because I don't think we have any chance without it. Sami is going to cop a *lot* of attention that game.
Melbourne in particular will be important with Wallace no certainty to even be available.

"Our defence won us that game, especially Sami. She was relentless."

The Opals half-court defence is the trademark of this team, got them bronze at the WC. Problem is, when you turn the ball over 20+ times each game your half-court D is getting bypassed a lot.

@Perthworld - bravo on the use of Terrance and Phillip *chefs kiss*

@luuuc - each of those were good shots for both those players but not dropping. both getting to good spots on the floor to take them. And actually looked like creating something.

Eye test re: Errors - dribbling the ball until 4 on the shot clock is an error in my book. She doesn't get the turnover stat but it was killing us on the offensive end.

A
Serbia 2-0 +25
Spain 2-0 +2
PR 0-2 -4
China 0-2 -23

B
France 2-0 +42
Nigeria 1-1 -8
Australia 1-1 -8
Canada 0-2 -26

C
USA 2-0 +39
Germany 2-0 +25
Belgium 0-2 -27
Japan 0-2 -37


Belgium and Japan in trouble, lots of ground to make up, hopefully a close game between the 2.
One of PR or China should make the 1/4s.
Australia if they can keep it close or win vs France, we also make 1/4s.
Canada gets beat- we hope.

@luuuc - each of those were good shots for both those players but not dropping. both getting to good spots on the floor to take them. And actually looked like creating something.

@luuc As for Melbourne making fewer errors than Madgen in that game, why even write a flat out lie like that? Other people with functioning eyes watched the game too, you realise?

While that may be the case its not hard to not make errors when you do almost nothing of value!! 28 Mins 1-2 1 Ast. Never really looked at the ring slow as hell and made sure she was on the 18 year in defence EVERYTIME!

Oldest squad it looks like.
(13 players) Avg age over 30.

Melbourne 22
Whitcomb 36*
Wallace 28
Madgen 34*
Borlase 20
Atwell 26
Talbot 30
Allen(inj) 32
Smith 28
Magbegor 25
George 35*
Tolo 35*
Jackson 43*

*Last tournament...


2026-2028 - Options to replace.
PG (Reid 28, Rocci 26, Heal 23, Amoore 23)
SG (Nicholson 31, Shelley 24, Swain 21)
SF (Kunek 33, Blicavs 31, Sharp 27, Bibby 26, Potter 22, Puoch 20)
PF (Garbin 30, Froling 28, Horvat 26, Bourne 24)
C (Scherf 28, Aokuso 26)

Second oldest after the US, 30.9.

It's part problem, you have to keep regenerating from within, it’s a bit like the cricket test team, once you’ve in you stay in.

While that may be the case its not hard to not make errors when you do almost nothing of value!!

@William 23, that is an opinion that I have no issue with. What I wrote further above said more or less the same thing.
All I took issue with was someone attempting to rewrite history.