Australian legend Andrew Gaze says bronze medal triumph for Boomers can ease mental anguish
FIVE-TIME Olympian Andrew Gaze says only a bronze medal for Australia’s Boomers will ease the mental anguish suffered from the semi-final capitulation to Serbia.
FIVE-TIME Olympian Andrew Gaze says only a bronze medal for Australia’s Boomers will ease the mental anguish of semi-final capitulation to Serbia.
Three times Gaze tried to win a bronze medal playoff and failed, forced to live with the regret of near misses at the Olympics for the rest of his career.
He yesterday challenged Australia’s veterans to snap Australia out of its funk by Monday morning’s clash against Spain, after saying they were physically “bullied” by Serbia.
No one will give Australia a chance to defeat Spain but Gaze said it would take all of the mental fortitude for Andrew Bogut, Matthew Dellavedova and Patrick Mills to bounce back.
“Two days ago we were playing some of the best basketball you would ever want to imagine,’’ he told News Corp.
“You have got to learn from the loss but don’t let it distract you from where you have to go. You have one game to create history.
“There is a lot of good form you can go back to and say, ‘We burnt this one up, this was something we will regret’.
“If you win that bronze medal, that becomes a distant memory.
“You win that last game, no one remembers what happens in the semi. It is forgotten and you have done something no one in the history of the sport has ever done.”
Gaze was scathing of the lack of physicality from Australia’s big men, adamant they need redemption against Spain.
“We were shell-shocked to start and the aggression they showed at the start of the game is something you normally see from us,’’ he told News Corp.
“As painful as it is, you almost have to take a leaf out of their books.
“They came out and bullied us. They bullied us out of our stuff and then psychologically the open shots became even tougher.
“I don’t like to put the onus on anyone but it comes down to the veterans. They are the guys who have been there in the past so to be able to rally the troops and be able to change the mindset is the most difficult thing to do. How did you change that in 40 hours?
“But if you have the right mentality, the right spirit, you look at your game plan and realise you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you can look at the other six games and the 30-point win over Lithuania.”
Assistant coach Luc Longley played in two of those bronze medal losses and admitted this week they made him feel like “shit”.
The first priority will be to strip back the offence that ground to a halt when Andrew Bogut wasn’t allowed to roam freely as a passing centre setting screens for the back-court players.
Australia’s horrific shooting then meant Serbia felt no pressure to rush the Boomers’ shooters, allowing their power forwards freedom to crowd Bogut and Andrew Baynes.
“They did really good defensively,’’ said Bogut of Serbia’s disruptive tactics.
“They took us out of our sets and pushed us out to the half-court and we just couldn’t get in our flow offensively.
“They took us out of all our stuff. We turned the ball over 11 times in the first half and they got offensive rebounds.
“We were trying to score every time down the floor and it put pressure on us.”
Originally published as Australian legend Andrew Gaze says bronze medal triumph for Boomers can ease mental anguish