Commonwealth Games - Goldcoast 2018

He's nothing to worry about there's hardly anyone who's bothered. 50 people at most I would say?

If it was our football team then it would be different of course

I think they were playing at Plymouth Raiders type level for the first half that I watched yesterday being honest

The flaw is they were beaten by a bbl team.

But are there any pro prospects in that Canada team?

Does this mean Rocks have won the playoffs?

Rob Beveridge relishing underdog status

Written for NBL.com.au by Roy Ward

Rob Beveridge could have been forgiven if he had not even picked up the phone.

After a frustrating Illawarra Hawks campaign and with his father seriously ill, you could only imagine what went through his head when his phone rang on a Monday night soon after his NBL season ended.

But Beveridge took that call and it has changed the course of his year and perhaps set a new course for his coaching career.

Beveridge will lead Scotland into a semi-final showdown with gold medal favourite Australia on the Gold Coast on Saturday morning and win or lose they will play for either the gold or bronze medal on Sunday.

Six weeks ago this was unthinkable but those in Australia knows Beveridge loves nothing more than turning a team of write offs into contenders.

Back when the phone rang on that Monday night, respected Australian coach Warwick Cann was on the other end of the call.

Cann hired Beveridge to head Queensland’s Intensive Training Centre 20 years ago and Cann is the former national team director for Great Britain basketball.

Current Scottish basketball head Barry Lang was desperately searching for a coach for Scotland’s fledgling team at the Commonwealth Games after they were forced to sack their previous coach under hazy circumstances.

It was six weeks until the games and the players, all sourced from either the British Basketball League or Scotland’s local league, were still playing at club level.

Scottish basketball only has around 2,000 registered members, they are smaller than many associations in Melbourne or Sydney, and they only get to play internationally on occasion.

Lang asked Cann for suggestions and two names came to mind, one of them being Beveridge.

“I know Bevo is a good coach and I know he has Scottish heritage so I put one and one together when they asked if I knew anyone who could do it,” Cann said.

Cann didn’t need to sell Beveridge on coaching the lowest seeded team, he immediately saw a calling in the position.

“Of course I would be interested,” was Beveridge’s answer and the next night he spent an hour on the phone with Lang, a call which saw him offered the Scotland job and asked if he could fly to Glasgow were six of the players play for professional side Glasgow Rocks.

The calling Beveridge saw stretches deep into his family’s heritage as his father was born in Scotland and emigrated to Australia in 1963 and the family has long retained a fierce pride in their Scottish roots.

“This job is a love job,” Beveridge said this week.

“It was never about doing this for an appointment, it’s for my family.

“My dad is very unwell, when I told him I was doing this he cried, it’s so enormous for the Scottish side of the family.

“I’ve never made any secret that I would love to coach the Boomers one day, have an opportunity to coach my homeland, now I’m doing that for his homeland.”

Beveridge's dad also made it clear they had to beat England.

Beveridge couldn’t get on court with his side until March 31 when they arrived in Australia and they faced England in their tournament opener on April 5.

Some coaches would throw up their hands, install a bare bones system and pray for their shots to fall.

But Beveridge is a master of tournament play and he had some great fortune too in having Great Britain captain Kieron Achara and veteran scorer Gareth Murray on his roster - both are proud Scots and have starred this tournament.

The Scots only have four full time professionals on their roster but Achara and Murray are two of Britain’s elite leaders and both went to Eurobasket with GB in 2017.

England don’t have the likes of Ben Gordon, Dan Clark and other European stars due to their clubs not having to release them but they still had a roster of professionals and were heavily favoured to win.

In eight training sessions and three lead up games, Beveridge implemented a suite of zone and trap defences and his offensive system.

“I know how to take teams out of their stuff, it’s one of my strengths,” Beveridge said.

“But the guys have just bought in, grabbed it and said “this is awesome”.”

Compared with group opponents England, Cameroon and India, Scotland looked undersized, slow and lacking depth.

But Beveridge saw the same fierce pride his family feels for their heritage in his players and he tapped into it.

“We needed to give them that belief they can compete with anybody - that is the biggest thing about Scotland,” Beveridge said.

“That passion to represent their country is at a different level. You see 12 Scots lining up with each other and when the national anthem is played they become seven foot and bullet proof - it’s an amazing feeling.

“My job is to facilitate and if you look at the personal we are the smallest team, all pretty non-athletic but our IQ is pretty good.

“We have some veterans, a few kids aged 17-20 and others who work full-time and play in Scotland. We only have four full-time pros.”

NBL fans know the sight of Beveridge-coached teams all to well and Scotland bought into that style with Achara, Murray and former Perth Wildcats development player Michael Vigor all starring in the win over England.

They celebrated that win 78-65 win then used that belief to push themselves to top their pool.

“We haven’t beaten England since 1977 so once we did that you saw the belief just soar, we woke up the nation,” Beveridge said.

Running a seven-man rotation with short cameos from others, Scotland have relied heavily on the likes of Murray, Achara, point guard Jon Bunyan and Vigor to score their points although rising forward Ally Fraser has been solid too.

Cameroon looked capable of blasting the Scots off the court but Scotland rode their defence and some very smart offensive play to a 63-52 win followed by see-sawing 96-81 victory over India.

“Cameroon, India, those sides were huge, Cameroon were like Adelaide 36ers on steroids with how athletic they were and the way they attacked the paint but we were amazing in how we coped with that,” Beveridge said.

“Jonny handled the pressure majority of the time, he is slow and methodical, our guards are our weakness and he has had to handle a big load.

“Our team can’t compete athletically but we slowed it down, have great ball movement and defensively we are doing some special things.”

When the Cameroon or Indian defences pressed and overplayed defensively, Scotland went to their offence and with Beveridge calling plays from the sidelines ran back cuts and screens which led to easy baskets.

The ride was meant to come to a crashing halt against Nigeria in a knockout final as they featured former NBA player Ike Diogu and again had a monstrous athletic advantage.

Scotland led early then withstood a comeback to hold a slim lead heading into the final minutes.

After a time out and with the Nigerians swarming them defensively, Beveridge called a play but he told his guards to back-cut immediately if their defenders overplayed.

The execution was textbook and Murray back-cut, caught a pass and drove in for a dunk sealing a 66-61 win and passage to the medal round.

“With these guys I say this is what I want and they do everything they can to execute it,” Beveridge said.

“Because Cameroon were in the lanes, in your face and double-teaming, we knew Nigeria was going to be like that too.

“I said this is the play, we want to split our big guys and if you are denied then release and it worked like clock work.

“That dunk down the middle was a dagger.”

Cann said Beveridge had worked wonders but had also made the most of having some seasoned professionals like Murray and Achara on his roster.

“The real trump was Bevo who has taken it to a new level,” Cann said.

“I was speaking to one of their players and he said “he’s the best coach I’ve ever had”.”

Making the semi finals has awoken Scottish basketball with interest back in the homeland reaching record levels while a medal could see a significant boost in government funding as basketball across Britain has taken painful cuts in recent years.

Players like Achara rate this tournament among their proudest moments but facing Australia will be a test like no other.

“Everybody has written us off,” Beveridge said.

“We are playing Australia in Australia, playing against true professionals and you look at their bodies and say they are a juggernaut but I’m also thinking “what can I do here?”

“I’ve coached 11 out of the 12 Boomers, Nathan Sobey is the only guy I haven’t coached.

“Guys like Damian Martin, Jesse Wagstaff have played with me forever and know my system so I’ll have to put something together to screw with them a little bit.”

Even if Australia dominate Scotland, they will get to play in the bronze medal game against the loser of Canada and New Zealand on Sunday.

Canada has sent a team of players from their university system but are still talented and deep while New Zealand has many of their usual Tall Blacks including Thomas Abercrombie and Mika Vukona.

With much of Scotland watching and plenty of NBL fans too, Beveridge knows there must be a legacy to this memorable run.

“We have made a lot of history and it’s about leaving a legacy to the big bosses in Scotland about the need to increase participation of kids in the sport,” Beveridge said.

“This is not a basketball nation but right now the country is going off, the amount of media and social media is out of control and that’s a good thing.

“When we play Australia we don’t want to embarrass ourselves through a lack of effort and then we will see what happens in the medal rounds.

“Anything can happen, we are playing bigger, stronger, faster teams and for some reason we are winning

That was excellent.
Four full time players.
Now where have I read these arguments before....!

Well done to the England Ladies, into the final after beating Canada 65-53.

Well done, England ladies. Fantastic.

That was truly fantastic. I am so pleased for the girls, I'm almost lost for words. Only almost, of course

Don't forget that, should you want to watch the final, it's at 11.30am on Saturday lunchtime. No day off between semis and final. It'll be a staggering upset if England even keep it vaguely close, but there's a reason they play the games...

Scotland semi, women's bronze and women's gold matches are all listed to be shown here: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/commonwealth-games/43508258