Basketball On The Internet.

OK. Let’s cut out this “bronze is the new gold” or “silver is the new gold” nonsense.

Gold is gold and to say any different is to try to put an unnecessary extra shine on something which already gleams.

I mean, let’s be honest.

For as long as most of us can remember, Australia has been punching way above its weight at international events such as the Olympic Games.

We boast a population of some 20-22 million at best, and the football codes (Aussie Rules and Rugby League) claim the lion’s share of our best young sportsmen, while netball takes a hefty chunk of our potential female athletes.

If, with who is left after all that, we can not only just compete in a myriad of sports at international level but also routinely be demonstrably successful, then hell yeah, we should be proud of everything we achieve.

This is a truly amazing sporting nation.

We produce world and Olympic champions across such a wide and diverse range of sports that, in the end, juggernauts such as the AFL start talking up how Joe Ingles could have been a football star!

There are some who believe the Boomers under-achieved in London. Say what?

Let’s remember a very important fact. It is way tougher now to reach the world’s top eight in men’s basketball than at any other time (boycotted Olympics notwithstanding) in history.

Once, you had the USA, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia dominating the international stage.

Basically, they were untouchable so you were already starting from a position of just joining them for the semi finals.

But, in case you didn’t notice, in 1992, NBA players came back to the Olympics and the USA went up a level.

Since then, the Soviet Union has ceased to exist but where there was once just one mighty superpower team, its demise instead spawned a whole slew of incredible national teams.

Think Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia – you get my point.

Where there was once just Yugoslavia to contend with, now it’s Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia.

Even Czechoslovakia was once a difficult opponent … now it is two tough opponents, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

And because their basketball programs are so entrenched and built on such solid bases, it’s not as if, for example, breaking up the USSR team created a bunch of weak national teams.

Quite the contrary.

For Lithuanians, for example, to be able to represent their own beloved homeland instead of the amorphous mass which was the Soviet Union, brought out their very best.

Ditto every other national team now able to play under its own true identity instead of an ideology.

So what does this mean to Australia?

It means that in Europe alone, the competition for berths has intensified, and let’s not forget national teams from places such as Spain, France or Italy.

(OK. I left out Greece. Had to stop somewhere.)

Traditionally, some of the South American countries also have had our number, probably most notably Uruguay and Cuba, which haven’t even qualified for a while. Let’s not even talk Argentina or Brazil.

What I am saying here is at most of the recent Olympics, our Boomers team has gone to the Games targeting a medal and they have said so.

That’s the target though, and always will be, even after we win one in Rio. But I digress.

Just because you don’t achieve the target, doesn’t mean the journey was wasted.

Should Boomers teams instead go off on a campaign saying: “We’re hoping to come ninth?”

Of course not.

Realistically, if the Boomers are travelling well, at or near the top of their games, at or very near full strength, then where they should finish is between fifth and eighth.

Yes, I know they played off for a medal in Seoul (1988), Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000) but those were simply exceptional tournaments where the planets aligned and fourth place was great reward.

(They may have had the golden goose a bit in Sydney and made goose cutlets out of it, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

Finishing between fifth and eighth accurately should reflect where our game sits in a world picture of 213 nations at any given time.

So yes, we should be disappointed if we finish ninth and outside the quarter-final round, but never if we have made it that far.

In London as in Beijing, the quarter-final crossover against the USA was going to be the end of the line and we all knew it.

What we wanted to see was a fighting performance and we got that.

I’ve always been a firm believer the way to avoid the USA in the quarter-finals is simple – be drawn in the same group.

Every time we are in the opposing pool, that KO showdown seems to draw us in like moths drawn to a candle flame.

So be it.

Did the Boomers make it to the top eight?

Yes indeed.

Seventh may not be the “new fifth” but it doesn’t have to be.

The same for the girls.

For some of the veterans, ending an Olympic Games with a victory was an entirely new experience.

Losing the Gold Medal game to the USA in 2000, 2004 and 2008 means your first emotion is disappointment so the Silver seems very poor compensation.

It’s not. But it is easy to see why the Opals could feel that way when your final game image is the USA celebrating while your teammates are in tears.

It’s still Silver though, making you No.2 in the world, something of which to be extremely proud.

OK, in London that fateful loss to France meant everything because our girls just could not sustain the pressure on the USA in their semi final game.

Yes, everyone in Australia who follows basketball knows that semi final should have been the Gold Medal game and as a contest, it was pretty much the US’s only challenge.

Remember, the USA is selecting from a population close to 300 million – they have 15 times our numbers yet we hang in there mighty well with them.

To walk off the podium with Bronze, again, is something to relish and not indirectly diminish by masquerading it as some other hue.

Other than Barcelona in 1992 when they failed to qualify, the Opals reached the medal round in Seoul (1988) and have been on the podium every Olympics since with Bronze in Atlanta, Silver in Sydney, Athens and Beijing, then Bronze again in London.

Like all Australians on the international sporting scene, they consistently punch above their weight and so often bring home magnificent results that, sadly, there is now a grand expectation.

In London, Australia STILL performed above its weight across the sporting board but at times, a spoilt public and ignorant media missed that point.

This country is an absolutely unbelievably wonderful place to live and play.

As a nation, we should recognise how much our sportsmen and women achieve, how much pride and unity they bring us as a nation and laud them for it.

The Olympic Games give everyone a chance to feel pride in where they come from.

Art can’t do that.

But it can help you paint a Bronze Medal golden if you want.

I just don’t believe we need to do that.