Goorjian slams "over the top" critics

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

"I’m sorry, I’m not on the same page with this. The whole thing was over the top."

Australian Boomers coach Brian Goorjian has vigorously defended his team, labelling calls of the recent World Cup campaign being a 'disaster' and 'devastating' as "over the top".

While Australia ultimately finished 10th after going into the tournament among the gold medal fancies, Goorjian said the fact is they still won three games, and lost two. He admits they deserved criticism and "failed" at the World Cup, but that it was quickly forgotten that the Boomers pushed the eventual champions, Germany, to one basket, and qualified for the Paris Olympics in the process.

"After the Slovenia game I’ve got people trying to comfort me which says it must be really bad ... then, I get all the feedback and people are calling it a ‘disaster’, ‘devastating’, ‘a total bust’ and ‘Goorj’s gotta f***ing go’. I’m sorry, I’m not on the same page with this. The whole thing was over the top," he told Code Sports.

"Devastating is you lose the Japan game and New Zealand beats Greece and we don’t get out of the group and we don’t qualify for Paris and we have to go through a pre-Olympic tournament."

The Aussie squad was hit with injuries in and around the World Cup, with Jock Landale hurting his ankle and missing the entire tournament, and both Josh Green and Melbourne United captain Chris Goulding affected at different times.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Josh Giddey has become the first recipient of the newly minted Rising Star Award, following an impressive FIBA World Cup campaign ??<br><br>Read more ? <a href="https://t.co/mEJRyRegY4">https://t.co/mEJRyRegY4</a><br><br>? <a href="https://twitter.com/FIBAWC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FIBAWC</a> <a href="https://t.co/t7rVR7sOiP">pic.twitter.com/t7rVR7sOiP</a></p>— NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1701062485909139635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Boomers secured three wins, over Finland, Japan, and Georgia, but were ultimately knocked out of the medal race in the second round.