Australian national basketball team

World championships
Australia Australia
Australia
Nickname (s)	Boomers
Association	Basketball australia
FIBA member since	1947
FIBA world rankings	11
Trainer	Andrej Lemanis
Record player	Phil Smyth (346)
Participation in the finals	12
Best results	4th place (2019)
Olympic games
Participation in the finals	14th
Best results	4th place (1988, 1996, 2000, 2016)
Continental championships
championship	Oceania Championship (until 2015) Asia Championship (since 2017)
Participation in the finals	21 (Oceania) 1 (Asia)
Best results	Oceania: 19 × gold (1971 to 1997, 2003 to 2007, 2011, 2013, 2015) Asia: gold (2017)
Homepage	australia.basketball ( english )
(As of October 1, 2018)

The Australian national basketball team for men , mostly called Boomers in Australia , represents Australia in international basketball competitions. As the strongest team in Oceania, it has been a regular participant in World Championships and Olympic Games since the early 1970s and has been a serial winner of the Oceania Championship.

history

Australia's first international basketball star is Eddie Palubinskas , who was the top scorer in the basketball tournament at the 1976 Olympic Games. Under the leadership of coach Lindsay Gaze , who was also one of the most important Australian players of the 1960s, and development player Phil Smyth achieved respectable successes in the early 1980s such as the victory against the later silver medalist Italy at the 1980 Olympic Games when Australia made the intermediate round only missed because of the poor basket ratio, and 5th place at the 1982 World Cup.

In the further course of the decade and in the 1990s, Lindsay Gaze's son Andrew Gaze in particular led the team to the Olympic semi-finals three times (1988, 1996, 2000), but without being able to win a medal. Numerous victories against highly rated opponents, including 1988 against Spain , 1996 against Croatia and 2000 again against Spain as well as against Italy and Russia . In addition, several Australian players gained NBA experience during this time (in addition to Gaze Luc Longley , Mark Bradtke , Shane Heal and Chris Anstey ; only Longley was able to establish himself permanently in the NBA).

After the Olympic Games in their own country in 2000, however, many of these players ended their national team careers. Australia promptly missed a major tournament for the first time since 1968 when they lost to New Zealand at the Oceania Championship in 2001. However, at the same time a change was made, which mainly meant the rise of Andrew Bogut , who led Australia to the junior world title in 2003 and in 2005 became the first Australian number 1 pick in an NBA draft .

The Australians were denied the great triumph. At the Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012, they were eliminated in the quarterfinals and finished seventh in both tournaments. In the basketball world championships in 2006, 2010 and 2014, the Australians did not get past the round of 16. For some years, however, more and more Australian players have been playing in the NBA, in addition to Bogut, for example, Matthew Dellavedova , Dante Exum , Patty Mills , Joe Ingles , Andrew Bogut , Cameron Bairstow and Aron Baynes . The Australian youth player Ben Simmons played for the US college Louisiana State University and is one of the greatest basketball talents worldwide. In the 2016 NBA draft , he became the second Australian to be selected first after Bogut.

Squad

Squad Australia at the 2016 Olympic Games

player
No.	Surname	birth	size	info	Calls	society
		Guards ( PG , SG )
4th	Chris Goulding	October 24, 1988	192			Melbourne United
5	Patty Mills	08/11/1988	183			United States San Antonio Spurs
8th	Matthew Dellavedova	09/08/1990	193			United States Cleveland Cavaliers
11	Kevin Lisch	05/16/1986	188			Sydney Kings
15th	Damian Martin	09/05/1984	186			Perth Wildcats
		Forwards ( SF , PF )
7th	Joe Ingles	10/02/1987	204			United States Utah Jazz
9	Ryan Broekhoff	08/28/1990	201			Russia Kuban Krasnodar locomotive
10	Cameron Bairstow	December 07, 1990	206			Brisbane Bullets
14th	Brock Motum	October 16, 1990	208			Lithuania Žalgiris Kaunas
		Center ( C )
6th	Andrew Bogut	11/28/1984	207			United States Dallas Mavericks
12	Aron Baynes	12/09/1986	207			United States Detroit Pistons
13	David Andersen	06/23/1980	210			Melbourne United