Boomers Win Big to Lock In World Cup Spot

Some of the brightest stars of NBL23 turned it on for the Australian Boomers as they booked in a FIBA World Cup spot with a 97-50 thrashing of Kazakhstan in an Asian Qualifier on Friday night.

The Boomers travelled to Astana, Kazakhstan for their ninth match in the qualifying stages for next year's FIBA World Cup in Indonesia, Philippines and Japan, and their undefeated run was all but locked away with a dominant start to the contest.

Australia made a scorching start opening up a 27-2 lead in just over the first six minutes of the contest and that set the tone for the evening with a terrific team performance with a line-up consisting of seven current and two former NBL players topped off with two young guns.

By the end of the evening, the Boomers piled on 97 points to win by 47 with all 11 players scoring with the team having to deal with the absence of Perth Wildcats' NBA draftee Luke Travers and Sydney Kings superstar Xavier Cooks.

However, 10 of the 11 players scored at least six points for the night with the Boomers shooting 51.7 per cent form the field as a team, going 9/22 at 40.9 per cent from downtown and 22/29 at the foul line.

On top of that, they finished with 48 points in the paint to 24, 15 second chance points to seven and 17 fast break points to six.

The dominance of the Boomers inside saw Sam Froling finish with 18 points and 11 rebounds and Angus Brandt 10 points and six boards even though he was frustrated to be limited to eight minutes before fouling out.

Jack McVeigh added 10 points to continue the dominance of the Australian frontcourt with Nick Kay adding seven points, five rebounds and three assists.

The backcourt wasn’t to be sneezed at either with Mitch McCarron leading the charge with nine points, five assists and two steals even if he was the last Boomers player to score.

DJ Vasiljevic hit 3/6 from deep for 13 points with Todd Blanchfield adding eight points and five rebounds, Rory Hawke seven points, Mitch Norton seven points and seven assists, Alex Toohey six points and four boards, and Jaylin Galloway two points and two rebounds. 

It was a stunningly dominant opening to the game from the Boomers with Nick Kay starting proceedings with a three-pointer with Australia soon to lead 7-0 before Kazakhstan's first bucket came after almost three minutes.

Australia continued to dominate with the next 20 points which included back-to-back threes from DJ Vasiljevic before and after a timeout from Kazakhstan.

Angus Brandt and Alex Toohey converted three-point plays and Jack McVeigh landed from beyond the arc to complete the 20-0 run for the Boomers to see the lead balloon out to 27-2.

Eventually Kazakhstan responded with the next six points on the back of a pair of three-point bombs, but again Australia hit the last 12 points of the half including an inside finish to Sam Froling to see the visitors on top 39-8 by quarter-time.

Despite another early 7-0 run early in the second quarter to see Australia's lead grow to 35 points, Kazakhstan did well the rest of the half to outscore the Boomers 14 points to 12.

However, the Boomers still led 58-25 by the half-time break on the back of a three on the buzzer from McVeigh.

Going into the half-time break, Australia was shooting at 51.4 per cent from the floor opposed to 22.2 from Kazakhstan while hitting 7/14 from three-point land to 3/18, and getting to the foul line 17 times to eight.

Mitch McCarron was the lone Boomers player yet to score early in the third quarter even though he had been running the team well. That soon changed when he stole the ball for a fast break finish and then hit a three ball straight after.

Australia's lead soon got out to 40 and beyond that just before three quarter-time with five quick points to Centre of Excellence young gun Rory Hawke.

The Boomers then came out strongly again to start the fourth quarter with a couple of more steals and finishes from McCarron, including a two-handed throwdown, and an and-one from Froling.

That had the lead out to 50 points and the Boomers would go on to win by 47 and remain undefeated in Asian Qualifiers for the World Cup.

FIBA WORLD CUP ASIAN QUALIFIER – SECOND ROUND

AUSTRALIAN BOOMERS 97 (Froling 18, Vasiljevic 13, Brandt 10, McVeigh 10)
KAZAKHSTAN 50 (Kuanov 9, Pan 6) 

BOX SCORE