Australian basketball legend Andrew Bogut is excited by what the Boomers can achieve in the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics.
Since 1956 when the Aussies first participated in basketball at the world-renowned event, the Boomers - named after the slang term for a male Kangaroo - have reached the semi-finals on five occasions, including the past two Olympic years in Tokyo (Japan) and Rio (Brazil).
Speaking on NBL Media's The Gold Standard, Bogut believes Australia's defensively driven roster has a chance to make this Olympics campaign "something special".
Ten players from the Tokyo 2020 Bronze medal breakthrough were named in the squad while a wave of young talent including international stars Josh Giddey, Dyson Daniels, Jack White and Xavier Cooks are set to lead the way.
“I'm looking forward to seeing how they come out and play, but we have a chance to do something special I think, just with the way we've got a gritty, long, athletic group defensively that can cause some problems,” Bogut said.
“Gold medal is always the goal. I think a short-term goal in this tournament for us is getting out of this group alive because it's a tough group, but it's get to the top four and then it's a free roll, right?
“Someone catches fire, ref makes a bad call, those kinds of things come into play once you're in the top four, you kind of create your own luck.
“We were real disruptive. If we can make our staple at the defensive end, it takes so much pressure off. We don't have to come down that other end and score. We can have bad possessions offensively, all right, who cares? We're going to go back and get a stop.”
In the lead-up to the Boomers' first match of the Olympics against Spain on July 27, the Australian contingent faced off against tournament favourites USA as well as Serbia.
Team USA took home the moral victory 98-92 but not without a scare, after the Aussies came back from 24 points midway through the third term.
Taking momentum into their final warm-up game against Serbia, the Boomers recorded an 84-73 win.
Veteran Patty Mills scored 28 points while NBA superstar and three-time MVP winner Nikola Jokic featured for Serbia.