Basketball On The Internet.

THE Opals have stamped their imprimatur at the FIBA World Cup qualifiers, the Sydney Kings and Adelaide 36ers will battle it out for the NBL's 2026 championship and Brad Rosen and I also talk about the death of basketball icon Ken Cole in this week's Brad&Boti podcast.

Congratulations to Sami Whitcomb for not only leading the Opals to a sweep of wins in Turkey over Argentina, Japan, Hungary, Turkey and Canada but also for claiming the tournament's MVP honours.

How about our Opals? Should they be receiving more publicity these days, considering how well soccer's Matildas have captured the nation's imagination?

The death of Ken Cole is the end of an era, the man who steered the Adelaide 36ers to the greatest single season in NBL history, the 24-2 run of that memorable, landmark 1986 year. 

But his life as a star player, playing-coach, then head coach to sideline expert, was memorable.

We talk NBL semi finals, Nathan Sobey producing a career high for South East Melbourne to force Adelaide into a deciding third game and Bryce Cotton proving to be a scoring freak, with 109 points in three playoff matches against Phoenix.

The Adelaide crowd most definitely impacted on Sobey in Game 3 and South East was unable to assert the kind of defensive authority it has championed all season.

Once Dylan Windler went down injured on virtually the final play of Perth's 104-105 Game 1 semi final loss to Sydney, it was going to take a Herculean effort for the Wildcats to extend this series to three games.

The trouble out west is that since Andrew Vlahov retired, Perth doesn't have a resident Hercules anymore.

We have our Plays of the Week, a Rosen Rattler and my Nagy Nasty discussion of how the "Delly Belly" turned the "Doolittle" into "DoVERYlittle".

All this and more awaits right now by clicking this LINK or by going to your usual podcast services.

FAREWELL KEN COLE: The King leaves us as his beloved 36ers chase their fifth championship.