NBL quartet to spearhead Boomers

The Australian Boomers coaching ranks will have a distinct NBL flavour for the upcoming FIBA World Cup Qualifiers against New Zealand.

Announced on Thursday, associate head coach of the Boomers, Dean Vickerman from Melbourne United, will be joined by assistants Kerry Williams (Adelaide), Luke Brennan (South East Melbourne) and John Rillie (Perth) for the two fixtures in Hobart and Wellington.

"There’s an incredible level of experience and expertise in this group and we’re committed to the process of bringing in complementary coaching staff,” said Jason Smith, executive general manager of Basketball Australia.

“We have an immense amount of respect for the Tall Blacks, so it’s imperative that we have high quality coaches, not only for the performance component, but to continually meet the standards we want the group to uphold as Boomers.”

Rillie will don the Australian polo for the first time since the historic bronze medal campaign in Tokyo in 2020 where he served as an assistant to Brian Goorjian.

It will be the second reintegration for Rillie, who initially represented Australia as a coach from 1997 to 2004.

Williams and Brennan were most recently involved in the FIBA Asia Cup qualification run with Jacob Chance, now with NBA G-League side the Austin Spurs, as interim head coach.

Boomers head coach Adam Caporn will miss the upcoming FIBA window fixtures due to a clash with his Washington Wizards activity.

The Boomers, headlined by 10 current NBL players, start their World Cup qualification campaign with a double-header versus the Tall Blacks, starting on November 28 in Hobart before travelling to Wellington on December 1.