AUS - Emus coach ready for the challenge

MELBOURNE (FIBA U19 World Championship) - Marty Clarke was well respected as a hardworking guard for the North Melbourne Giants in the early days of Oceania's NBL competition.

Since retiring from playing, Clarke has made a name for himself as one of the premier junior coaches in Australia. Currently he is head coach of the world renowned Australian Institute of Sport basketball program, head coach of Australia's U19 national team - the Emus, and assistant coach with the Australian Boomers senior men's program.

Clarke and the Emus are currently preparing for a Four Nations torunament in Melbourne, where they will face the might of Greece, Spain and France before heading to Auckland for the FIBA U19 World Championship.

Anthony Simonetti from www.nbl.com.au caught up with Australia's busiest basketball coach for this excellent Q & A session. To hear more of Marty Clarke's thoughts about basketball and the upcoming world championship, listen to his interview with Bill Baxter from Basketball Australia.

What are your team's strengths going into this weekend's Four Nations Tournament?

Like most Australian teams, our strengths are that we are a team, and we play as a team and we play for each other. We play with, as the Europeans keep saying, the right spirit … the right way to play. Basketball specific, I think our guards are very good, we have the ability to score from that position. I think our biggest strength is our versatility- we're reasonably deep, we can play different spots on the floor and they can be successful. It's not like other years where we've had one or two real studs, we probably have a more even team this year.

What are a couple players to keep an eye on when watching this tournament?

I think Brock Motum is one player, Cody Ellis is another guy. Matt Dellavedova and Ryan Broekhoff are two Melbourne kids, two Victorian kids. They've shown that they're good internationally and they've been guys who have been in the program a long time. Those would be the four guys I'd probably pick out. Jorden Page, depending on, he's injured at the moment, so he may or may not play in this tournament, he's certainly a guy who's exciting to watch and exciting to follow as a player.

What are the differences between the team you're taking to the World Championships this year, and the team that went in 2007?

The 2007 team obviously had two outstanding players in Mills and Ogilvy. It had a lot of guys that were great role players, and they complimented Patrick and AJ very well; but I think this team is a deeper, more talented team across the board that probably just doesn't have those one or two stars. Again, in some ways that's good, because it makes it a little harder to scout, a little harder to take away things from someone, and then other people can step up and get it done.

What team in the Four Nations Tournament do you present the most matchup problems for?

The Four Nations is going to have some quality basketball, it is going to be outstanding. The Greeks are a very good team, they've dominated European competition right through, this age group right through. The French have certainly gotten better over the last two years, they're big and athletic. Spain we haven't seen much of, but they're Spanish so they'll be very good. I'm not sure which team we'll present the most problems to, and I don't know who will present the most problems to us, but we'll be able to negotiate. It will be very high quality basketball.

What has been the most enjoyable part of coaching the Emus?

The most enjoyable part of coaching this age group is the ability to have some influence over them. Hopefully it is positive, and watching them change as people, watching them grow from adolescence to young men. This particular group does everything they can to try and make the adjustments you ask them to make. And that's really part of their selection process, if they can't change then our ability to influence them is zero. The enjoyable part of this is you're dealing with young guys that love the game, love to play hard, and really like each other. I think that's an important ingredient as well.

Paulo Kennedy
FIBA