With the London Olympics now only a week away, let’s take a look at the squad that will represent us in the mighty green and gold.

The Squad

• Patty Mills
• Brad Newley
• Matthew Dellavedova
• Joe Ingles
• David Andersen
• Adam Gibson
• Peter Crawford
• David Barlow
• Matt Nielsen
• Mark Worthington
• Aleks Maric
• Aron Baynes

Andrew Bogut will sit out the Olympics due to an ankle injury.

The Head Coach is Brett Brown, currently an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs.

Players To Watch

Patty Mills is the obvious one to watch here. He will be lead the Boomers’ offence and will really need to fire if the Aussies are to have any chance against the better teams.

Joe Ingles had a great game against Spain earlier in the week, scoring 11 points and 6 rebounds in a game high 30 mins of court time.

Though if I were to choose a ‘Dark Horse’ to make an impact these Olympics, I would keep an eye on Guard/Forward David Barlow.

Barlow scored 11 points against Spain – going 3-of-4 from three-point range. He can shoot the lights out and played well against NBA-calibre defenders.

The Boomers will rely on their outside shooters, so look for Barlow to get plenty of opportunities.

Photo Credit: www.corporate.olympics.com.au

Keys To Success

While the Boomers aren’t a team of superstars, or have an overly deep roster – they’re a very solid and hard working unit.

They shoot well and always look for the open man regardless of who that may be. They work hard on the defensive end and try to keep the pressure on at all times.

The Aussies are probably not quite good enough yet to defend top players straight up, so they will need to be vocal and help each other out defensively whenever possible.

Andrew Bogut mentioned this recently, saying:

“We can’t play five-on-five, man-to-man and grind out a win because, to be honest, [opposing] teams are much deeper than us and more talented than us at this point. We need to – even with myself in the line-up – jump our games up; press, zone, change our defences and keep them guessing and I think Brett Brown will do that.”

Photo Credit: www.london2012.fiba.com

Photo Credit: (top) www.bloguin.com