Gaze on Boomers' Olympic chances

As the group of death awaits at the Paris Olympics, five-time Olympian and Hall of Famer Andrew Gaze says he's optimistic about the Boomers' chances of proceeding past the first stage.

Gaze says he has no doubt Australia could finish first in the group, but given the quality of teams around them, could just as easily not win a game. 

To progress to the next round, the Boomers must finish in either the two top of their respective group, or be one of the top two third-placed teams.

That doesn’t leave much room for error, with tough matchups against Spain, Canada and Greece, all ranked within the top 14 in the world. The seventh-ranked Canadian team is one of the favourites for a gold medal. 

But Gaze says Brian Goorjian's Boomers can't be underestimated, as they look to back up their memorable bronze medal winning campaign from Tokyo. 

“It’s probably not the group you’d have picked to be in if you were given a choice,” Gaze admitted. “But if you look at them all, they’re all tough groups anyway. It’s an Olympics after all ... some of the best countries in the world didn’t even make it.”

Through qualifying tournaments and automatic entries from the World Cup, there are just 12 teams who make up the Olympics, compared to 32 in a World Cup, meaning powerhouse basketball countries like Italy, Argentina, Lithuania and Slovenia failed to even earn a spot. 

“The toughest part of the draw for Australia is that regardless of their results, the other two groups could each have three teams finish on two wins each,” Gaze noted. “That’s where it can make it really hard to progress through, even if you play well.

“Sometimes in the past, you can get through to the next round by only winning one game. But looking at the other groups, it’s possible that won’t be the case for whoever finishes third in our pool.”

Both Spain and Greece booked their spot after winning their respective qualifying tournaments last week. Spain defeated Bahamas 86-78 in the Spanish region, while Greece defeated Croatia 80-69. Both countries won all four games they played on their way to securing their ticket to Paris –  and in the process forced out some very strong opponents. 

“A major concern for me above everything else right now, is that teams like Spain and Greece have already played four meaningful games leading up to the Olympics,” Gaze said.

“Those qualifying games, where everything is on the line, is a unique situation for those teams. Every other country is using warm-up games to work up to a certain level. But then you have Spain and Greece who are already playing at a high level, because they just played in do-or-die games in order to make it.” 

The Australian team has upcoming warm-up games against the USA and Serbia in Abu Dhabi, following a pair of hit-outs with China last week. 

But things step up to a whole new level at the Olympics. 

Despite landing in an incredibly tough group, Gaze says the Boomers have the talent to take it to the best, starting with Spain on July 27. 

“When you look at the rosters top to bottom, our roster is definitely more talented. Now it’s just about putting it together,” he said.

“They call it the group of death, which is fair enough ... but if you can pull out a couple of wins, then that next round matchup is going to be a little tastier.

“We could finish first in this group, I have no doubt about it. We have the talent to do that for sure. The problem is, we also could play very well and not win any of these games too.

“That’s the nature of the beast that is the Olympic tournament play.”

If Australia can finish first or second in their group, it's likely they'll avoid a quarter-final matchup with USA or France, who many believe will be the two powerhouses of the tournament. 

Over to you, Boomers.