FILE – Australia head coach Brian Goorjian yells to his crew in a males’s basketball recreation in opposition to Spain on the 2024 Summer time Olympics, July 27, 2024, in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France. (AP Photograph/Mark J. Terrill, File)
SYDNEY — California-born Brian Goorjian is leaving as head coach of the Australian males’s basketball crew after 4 Olympics and two stints accountable for the Boomers.
Basketball Australia mentioned in a press release Wednesday that Goorjian would proceed his teaching profession with the Sydney Kings within the Nationwide Basketball League.
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In his first tenure as nationwide coach from 2001 to 2008, Goorjian guided the Boomers to the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics, a World Cup in 2006 in Japan and a gold Commonwealth Video games medal in Melbourne the identical 12 months.
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Returning to the function in 2020, Goorjian led the Boomers to their historic first Olympic medal in Tokyo — a bronze — after which a fourth Video games in Paris this 12 months, the place Australia misplaced within the quarterfinals in extra time to Serbia.
Andrew Gaze, a former Boomer, NBL and NBA participant and Seton Corridor star in U.S. school basketball, mentioned Goorjian’s affect on the game prolonged past his function as nationwide coach.
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“Brian’s legacy extends to gamers which have represented Australia even when he wasn’t teaching the nationwide crew, his legacy contains the event of the sport as a participant, a coach and an advocate,” Gaze mentioned.
READ: Australia beats Spain, Germany tops Japan at Paris Olympics
“It’s vital to acknowledge his contribution to the Australian scene as a coach however I believe that’s solely a part of the whole story of Brian Goorjian and the numerous affect he’s had on the general recreation and the contribution he’s made to the lives of many.”
Luc Longley, an Australian and former Boomer who received three straight NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls, mentioned Goorjian had the flexibility to stay present and related throughout generations.
“He’s an American who discovered to talk the Australian basketball language then went by way of a number of generations of change,” Longley mentioned. “And now he’s the go-to-go man who can talk with a brand new era of younger Aussies enjoying within the NBA.”
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