MELBOURNE, Australia — Ten players from Australia’s Tokyo 2020 bronze medal-winning side have been named in an extended 22-man squad for the Paris Olympics, including Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, Josh Green, Dante Exuma and Jock Landale.
There are 10 NBA-based players in coach Brian Goorjian’s squad, which also includes Josh Giddey and Dyson Daniels. The squad will be trimmed to 12 players before a pre-Games training camp in July.
Brooklyn Nets point guard Ben Simmons was not named in the squad as he is still recovering from back surgery. Simmons has never played at the Olympics for Australia but said he had planned to compete in Paris before his most recent injury.
The Boomers are coming off a 10th-place finish at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, but secured automatic qualification for Paris as the highest-finishing team from Oceania.
Goorjian will lead the Boomers to a fourth Olympics as head coach.
“The World Cup in 2023 marked a new beginning for the Boomers,” Goorjian said Thursday. “We were able to introduce some new faces and identify areas that we needed to advance and improve, We’ve been actively monitoring the Aussie players across international leagues in U.S., Europe and Asia as well as domestically in the NBL and we’re confident in the potential chemistry of this list.”
Australia will play in Group A at the Paris Games. Its only confirmed opponent in that group so far is Canada.
The other two teams will come from qualifying tournaments. One is in Greece — either Greece, Slovenia, New Zealand, Croatia, Egypt and the Dominican Republic, and the other is in Spain — one of Spain, Lebanon, Angola, Finland, Poland and Bahamas.
Australia opens play against the Spain qualifier on July 27. There are 12 teams in the group phase with eight advancing to the medal round. The men’s gold medal final is scheduled for Aug. 10 at Bercy Arena in Paris.
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Australia Olympic squad: Dyson Daniels, Matthew Dellavedova, Xavier Cooks, Dante Exum, Sam Froling, Johnny Furphy, Josh Giddey, Chris Goulding, Josh Green, Joe Ingles, Nick Kay, Jock Landale, Will Magnay, Will McDowell-White, Jack McVeigh, Patty Mills, Keanu Pinder, Duop Reath, Matisse Thybulle, Dejan Vasiljevic, Jack White, Rocco Zikarsky.
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AP Paris Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
