'Anyone can win': Gaze on Boomers' chances

NBL legend Andrew Gaze has called on Australia not to underestimate its opening opponents at the FIBA World Cup, Finland.

Gaze has travelled to Japan as part of the commentary team covering the Boomers games, and enjoyed an early preview of Friday night's opponents.

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“I’ve been able to have a firsthand look at Finland who are ranked 24^th in the world, and they’ve got some interesting talent, led by Lauri Markkanen … it’s not going to be easy,” Gaze told SEN.

“The more I dig into this pool and the pool we’ve got to cross over with, we’ve got some heavy lifting. In fact, the experts here are calling it ‘the pool of death’.

“Those are the word’s they are using because Germany is very, very capable, Australia is strong, but the FIBA thing here has Germany as favourites to win this pool and we were second. I don’t know what’s going on but it’s going to be a challenge.”

The Boomers have made so secret of their desire to return home from the World Cup with the first gold medal in the history of Australian men’s basketball, but Gaze believes there are a number of teams that could contend for the top gong.

“This is a World Cup that is open and that’s why I really like Australia’s chances. It is open to some of those teams you haven’t quite been familiar with in the past,” he said.

“The Americans are still going to be strong and it’s foolish to ignore what they’re capable of, because they’re a very fine outfit, The thing about this American team is it’s not their really high-profile guys.

“If you take them out of the equation then France who we beat the other day is a very, very fine team. Spain is always going to be tough, but France, Spain, ourselves, Italy are going to be very good. In these types of tournaments anyone can jump out.”

Australia will open its World Cup campaign on Friday night at 6pm AEST, live on ESPN.