Opals stunned by Serbia to go crashing out of Olympics

Baby Huey! That's the Chinese player you're thinking of.

Agree Arky. While Serbia did dial up the pressure, the Aussie girls just threw too many passes straight to them. That's not pressure, that's just horrible execution.

Getting up and down the court is nor exacrty going to tire out any basketball player, and is the minimum you need to do, a few extra meters to the post is not going to make a difference. The secret to getting a big unfit player to last is to have them go from post to post , and not to have to do any of the extra movement or rotations in attack or marking in defense. This would have also been more sensible considering Cambage lack of speed. They need to work out a system which fits one slow tall player. The CHinese used to have a taller player who was slower than Cambage, Soviet Union used to have a bloke when Sabonis was injured who was 7 foot 4, a big girth and slower than Yao Ming.

....& so on it goes - the Ozzie Olympic campaign by those individuals and teams that are ranked at the top of their games have performed well below their potential. Why this has been experienced on such a broad scale is anyones guess. I for one feel strongly that this presents a strong case for cutting funding dramatically to elite sport, not as a impulsive reaction to our Rio disasters but for the games preceding Rio as well. Time to change our strategy and especially in respect of Swimming - to be sure.

....& so on it goes - the Ozzie Olympic campaign by those individuals and teams that are ranked at the top of their games have performed well below their potential. Why this has been experienced on such a broad scale is anyones guess. I for one feel strongly that this presents a strong case for cutting funding dramatically to elite sport, not as a impulsive reaction to our Rio disasters but for the games preceding Rio as well. Time to change our strategy and especially in respect of Swmming - to be sure.

The one dimensional plan was the only thing that worked when they could get the ball into Liz's hands. They did have Liz doing screens and they were a failure from that.They looked slower,and outmatched physically across the rest of the park. LIz is slow which is why you play a zone and let her sit inside. The difference between Serbia and the earilier matches Serbia kept going to the final whistle. They needed to find one younger fast point guard because they were even struggling to advance it past the halfway line at times.

I hope some serious questions are asked of Joyce. There were some baffling selections (Burton!) and obvious disharmony in the team to go with non existent game plan.

It was just boggling stuff. So many of the turnovers weren't particularly forced by good Serbian D, they were just awful passes thrown under no pressure or awful passes thrown because the player had no confidence taking a shot. Then there were the turnovers and the awful shots which resulted from putrid offensive sets where a guard (generally Mitchell, who had an execrable game at both ends in spite of Lauren Jackson trying to talk her up on commentary) dribbled the clock down aimlessly while nobody much moved off the ball, then finally tried to force something with 5 or 6 seconds left (often a wild heave in Liz Cambage's general direction, hoping for Liz to rescue the possession). The final possesion, where Mitchell... dribbled aimlessly while nobody much moved off the ball, then hurled it way too late in Cambage's generaly direction... said it all. Serbia as a team far outplayed the Opals, but the Opals nearly won anyway because Cambage is so individually dominant. Without Cambage the Opals would have been absolutely smashed.

I actually had a bit of sympathy for Liz’s defensive efforts. I remember in the Japan game she was lazy getting back a few times, and one stage in the 3rd quarter she had to be taken off after 4 minutes of play because was spent. At the time I was cursing her for being unfit, but in reality, after breaking down the offense in my previous post, the reason that she was spent was because running her backside off up and down the court from low post to low post. Because she was the only player that was ‘essential’ to our offense, it meant that she had be down the court before offense could run its sets. So in order to get our offense moving, she had to get up and down the court as fast as possible, and that’s hard to do if you constantly the last line of the defence particularly if you are responsible for the inbounds or defensive rebound. Once again, I don’t think that is Liz’s fault ---- that’s poor coaching and player management.

Spot on Rakshop. Very one dimensional and no plan B, if get to Liz didnt work panicked shots were chucked up. Liz is an amazing offensive talent but her effort on defense leaves a little to be desired.

Australia should have been playing a zone defense all tournament with Liz Cambage, there was a lack of outside shooting threat. That would have protected Cambage getting into foul trouble, and let her play more minutes. Teh Serbian team was double teaming all match yet they, throw the ball in, run off to the basket and leave Leilanii Michell without a support option. I don;t understand what the point is of having players in the corners with weak outside shooting, and you have double teaming happening on the point guard.

With 26 turnovers their loss came at no shock. Just disapointment. The Opals have played the same throughout the whole tournament and were always going to be exposed by a team who played with more heart. Their defensive pressure was lacking and their offensive play was lazy. Like most games they only tried to make a come back in the fourth quarter and it had worked up until Serbia. Mitchell played well but was unaware of the time in the last dying seconds and held onto the ball for too long. She should of passed it to Cambage who could have got two points. I personally think one player made the biggest difference to the team, and that being Lauren Jackson (retired). Jackson is arguably one of the best players of all time. She has left an obvious gap in the team, one they struggled to fulfill.

Really do need to get some sleep! Meant the Serb's!

Key stat you listed Scott was the turnovers. Our shooting percentages were higher than that of the Croatian's, but when you are giving them so much ball, it allows the opponents to have more chances to score, which the Serbians took. Credit to the Serb's though, they were aggressive, and forced the Opals to make the mistakes.

I don’t think it was a surprise and I certainly wasnt 'stunned' that the Opals were knocked out in the quarters. Go back to the pool games, they probably should have lost against Belarus and Japan, and were very very uninspiring against Brazil. I didn’t bother getting up to watch the quarter-final because I kind of knew that the likelihood of a loss was high, so I cant really comment about that match because I haven’t seen it. But in the preliminaries, it was obvious that there was a ‘Lauren Jackson’ sized hole in their offense. And lets face it, you simply cant replace that type of player. BUT…. what irked me was that you can easily replace the style of offense you run. And this is where I think coaching team for the Opals made a catastrophic mistake that was incredibly obvious to anyone who has played basketball. The offense was run specifically to get Liz down on the low block to roll towards the basket. The whole offense seemed to be set up on the premise that there was always going to be high screen for the point to switch off of the post, which could lead to pass to the wing to feed to Liz down low, or switching the defence to create a mismatch on the high post for either the point or the 4/5 (which would have been Jackson…. sigh), freeing up either wing if doubled for open looks at the basket. The Opals simply changed that offense to bypass the high screen, with the first job for point to look for Liz in the low post. As a defender, that’s pretty easy to defend, despite Liz being hugely dominant, if the ball didn’t make it the low post, or if Liz couldn’t roll to the basket, there was no spacing and very little movement on the wings for the 2 and 3 to either create, which usually meant that they had to jack up a low percentage three, or try to create an open look, with a few seconds left on the shot clock. This is why Penny Taylor was so ineffective in all games except for the match against France and probably why the Opals turned the ball over so much, Wasn’t her fault. It was a result of a 1990’s style offence that relied on one player in the low block and the hope that we can shoot above .400 from beyond the arc with a hand constantly in our face. No team will be the same once you take one of the best players of all time out of it, but I really think the coaching staff did a poor job adjusting to the new lay of the land.

What a massive disappointment Scott, as it was really expected the Opals would at least go through to the semis. But well done Serbia for taking this scalp! I didn't see the game but, on the evidence portrayed in the 'match stats', is little wonder the Opals lost!?! When a team, any team, concedes 26 turn-overs, which also includes 16 steals by the opposition, they are gonna lose. If you don't treasure possession it's not going to happen for you on the scoreboard. Funnily enough I heard the classic 'commentators' curse' last night in a Seven's highlight package... saying that Aussie still had the B/Ball as serious medal hopes. And I thought at the time... yeah, but there's still a lot of ball to be played!! I hope our Boomers take note, and thus steel themselves for their game against Lithuania... they will need to bring it large :)