AUS – Australia U17 Men full of respect for Group B foes

HAMBURG (FIBA U17 World Championship for Men) – Australia will head into this summer’s FIBA U17 World Championship for Men with the highest regard for their Group B opponents, all of which they have never faced or seen in action before.

In the first round of the competition, Australia – who qualified for the tournament by beating New Zealand at the 2009 FIBA Oceania U17 Championship last August – face Canada, hosts Germany, Korea, Poland and Spain.

Head coach Guy Molloy said it is hard to predict how his team will fare against their previously unseen opposition.

“It’s a bit of an unknown because it is the first World Championship for the U17 age group so we don’t have any prior knowledge of the opposition players,” he reasoned.

“You would assume that Spain will be the favoured team in our group as they are the number one seed out of Europe, and Germany, as the host nation, are going to make a very concerted effort to perform well. After that, it’s very hard to say.”

So how can Malloy prepare his team for what awaits them? By using his extensive World Championship experience to put together as accurate a scouting report of every opponent as possible – and doing an impressive job of it.

“It will be my fourth World Championship and every team has national characteristics,” he revealed. “Based on that experience you would expect that the Koreans are probably not as big as the Spanish would be and that they would play a drive-and-kick kind of game with three-point shooting, whereas the Spaniards probably have everything covered.

“The Poles and Germans might play a typical European kind of game. Canada is usually a lot closer to the USA style of play and you would expect they would be the most athletic team in our group.”

And Molloy has already started thinking about what tough clash could await Australia should they make it through to the quarter-finals.

“When you look at Group A and see USA, Lithuania and Argentina, it could suggest that their group could be harder to get through,” he offered. “But you have to face the problem of that tough opposition at some time because you’ll bump into one of those teams in the later rounds.”

Australia wasted no time in beginning their preparations for the tournament in Hamburg as they opened a four-day training camp on Thursday at the Australian Institute of Sport.

FIBA