CHARLOTTE (Steve Goldberg's Wheel World) – A is for Australia. When your history is playing in every major tournament, missing one has a way of bringing a renewed sense of purpose to a team. So it is with the national women's wheelchair basketball team of Australia.

Since joining the fray for the first time in Barcelona in 1992 – earning three silver and one bronze medals in their six appearances - the Gliders experienced a Paralympic games from the outside looking in for the first time two years ago as the rest of the world convened in Rio.

They would rectify that with a second-place finish in the AOZ world championship qualifier last October, solving every riddle except China.

In February, the Gliders took the bronze medal at the Osaka Cup tournament, losing to the Netherlands and Great Britain – two teams in their World Championship pool - but besting host Japan twice.

Gliders coach David Gould is clear about the team's intentions in Hamburg. They want a podium finish.

"We're hoping to medal; that's our goal. We're not talking about anything else. We're talking about medalling." 
David Gould, Head Coach - Australia Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team

To temper the steel of his team, the Gliders hosted Germany, currently the second rated team in the world, this past week for a series of exhibition games.

“This six-game series in Australia gives the Gliders another opportunity to continue to build towards World Championships success,” said Gould.

Veteran help will come from Paralympic medalist Kylie Gauci, who had been absent from the team for almost two years with a shoulder injury, in helping Gould mentor newcomers like Annabelle Lindsay and Bree Mellberg.

The value of these games, in which the Gliders won two and lost four, won't be measured by that record but by how the experience plays out in their development towards Hamburg.

The Aussie Gliders are building chemistry towards the IWBF World Championships in Hamburg this August. Photo courtesy of Basketball Australia

 Links to FIBA LiveStats of the games can be found here.

B is for…

Well, nothing actually but I needed it to make my headline work. So on to…

And DK makes 3

While wheelchair 3x3 won't be on the Paralympic schedule in Tokyo as it will be for the Olympic Games, the rolling halfcourt game remains nonetheless part of the current tapestry of the game.

Perhaps the longest running event, the DK3 Invitational tournament will be tipping off for the 15^th year in Dallas on June 2-3 at the University of Texas-Arlington. The DK is David Kiley, the first player ever to have a signature game chair. Not even the rarest of Air Jordans cost that much!

Kiley launched the second DK3 Invitational tournament last summer in North Carolina. Photo by Steve Goldberg/SCS Media

It will be semi-Paralympic in the sense that a dozen or so USA former and current national teamers will be participating. Rio alumni include Jared Arambula, Brian Bell, Abby Dunkin, Aaron Gouge, Becca Murray, Matt Scott, and Jake Williams. There are some future ones as well.

The tournament's Facebook page is a must-read for wcbb fans as most, if not all of these world class players are profiled by one of the world's all-time best in Kiley himself.

This one featured Aaron Gouge and illuminates the longstanding relationships Kiley has with so many players in the game today.

Kiley plans to expand the event across the country and maybe even take it overseas. That began last year when he hosted a DK3 tournament near his home in Mooresville, North Carolina. He told me that next up may be Chicago and he definitely wants to see it in California where he grew up.

Events like this are important in the efforts of the IWBF to build the critical mass for the small-sided game in order to get it on the Paralympic schedule in the future.

Steve Goldberg

FIBA

FIBA's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

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