US the next challenge
25/08/2006
Australian coach Brian Goorjian is not making any predictions for the team's sudden-death match against the USA, but he has conceded he is happy with his team's performance so far at the FIBA World Championships in Japan.
Australia was drawn in a competitive group alongside Greece, Lithuania, Turkey, Brazil and Qatar, with the Boomers recording victories over the two latter countries.
"You've got Lithuania in this pool, Greece the European champion, the America's champion (Brazil), the Oceania champion, I don't know who put it together but they didn't do us any favours," Goorjian told AAP.
"We played Turkey tough, we played Greece tough, we played Qatar tough, we played Brazil tough, we came here and did our work."
Goorjian's next hurdle will be taking on a primed American outfit. He will be hoping that his underdog team - with the help of Andrew Bogut's inside NBA knowledge - can make a go of it in the knock-out match against the United States on Sunday.
"It's going to be a big challenge," Bogut said after Thursday's 93-46 win over Qatar.
"We're either going to be another peg in their run or can seriously come out and try to play hard against them."
"You never know what could happen."
While the US breezed through the group stages, beating all its opponents, American coach Mike Krzyzewski said that the game against the Boomers would be a bit of an unknown.
"We have to study now Australia, I just know they have Andrew Bogut and they have qualified for the next round so we expect a good game from them," Krztzewski said.