As they enter the final preparation phase for their crucial upcoming Olympic qualification series against archrivals New Zealand, the Boomers Australian men’s basketball team are playing a numbers game.

Simply put, 16 into 12 won’t fit.

Sixteen is the number of players who have joined Boomers’ head coach Brett Brown and his staff on the Gold Coast this week for their five-day training camp.  Twelve is the final number of players that will earn the right to wear the green and gold as the Boomers take on the New Zealand Tall Blacks in the 2011 FIBA Oceania Championship series, which starts on September 7.

That means that, whilst an extended squad of 14 players will travel to Europe immediately following the Gold Coast camp to participate in basketball’s official Olympic Test Event in London from 16 to 21 August and a pair of international friendlies against Spain, four of the 16 athletes currently on the Gold Coast will ultimately miss the cut.

Making the competition for places in the lucky dozen all the more fierce is the fact that the group assembled on the Gold Coast currently is as close to being full strength as the Boomers have enjoyed in quite some time.

Just two Boomers regulars, big men Andrew Bogut and David Andersen, are unavailable for the Olympic qualifying series.  Bogut has been ruled out due to insurance issues arising from the on-going NBA lockout while Andresen is recovering from surgery.

The quality of players on display at the Boomers’ Gold Coast training base at The Southport School however is packed with European and American-based Aussies and a testament to the depth of Australia’s international basketball stocks.

Heading the list is Portland Trail Blazers guard Patty Mills.  The indigenous NBA star says he has tunnel vision at the moment as he looks to lead the Boomers past New Zealand and on to London.

“Our one goal at the moment is to beat New Zealand and move ahead to qualify for the Olympics,” Mills said recently.

Joining Mills on the Gold Coast are European-based Australians and Boomers veterans David Barlow, Joe Ingles, Brad Newley and Matthew Nielsen.  Throw into the mix the less experienced but no less talented likes of Australian internationals Aron Baynes, Daniel Kickert, AJ Ogilvy, and Aleks Maric, as well as teen sensations Matthew Dellavedova and Hugh Greenwood and NBL stars Peter Crawford, Adam Gibson, Damian Martin, Jesse Wagstaff and Mark Worthington and you have a lot of serious talent vying for those final 12 places.

Townsville Crocodiles veteran Crawford is under no illusions as to just how tight competition for places on the final team for the series against New Zealand will be.

"When you are at the tail end of a cut, one or two bad training sessions and that can be it," Crawford told the Townsville Bulletin.

"Of course, I would love to make the next side (for the European tour), that would be awesome. Right now, it's hard to plan too far ahead ... I'm just playing through to Friday and wait for the cut to come then."

The selection of the right team to play the Tall Blacks is crucial, with New Zealand basketball riding a wave of confidence currently.  Not only did the New Zealand Breakers recently become the first New Zealand sporting team ever to win an Australian professional sporting competition, but the Tall Blacks overnight advanced to the final of the Stankovic Cup tournament in China by beating Angola, 73-70.

Whilst that is notable in and of itself, the fact that the self-same team from Angola recorded an 85-66 victory over the Boomers in an earlier leg of the Stankovic Cup would surely give the Tall Blacks a major confidence boost.

Although the Boomers side that lost to Angola was missing Mills and the vast majority of its European-based content, whilst the Tall Blacks are at full strength, it is a fair indicator that the Boomers are going to have a fight on their hands to move past New Zealand and qualify for London.

That means that for Brett Brown and his Boomers men, it is going to be vital that come September their numbers stack up.

Game One of the 2011 FIBA Oceania Championship series, which is being played as a double-header with the Opals Australian women’s team,  will be in Melbourne on 7 September at the State Netball Hockey Centre (AKA ‘The Cage’).  Game Two will be held at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on 9 September and Game Three is at the Sydney Entertainment Centre on 11 September. 

Basketball Australia