12
Sep
Choose Your Team
Build your Opals team for LA 2028 Olympic Games
The Australian Opals at the 2026 FIBA Women's World Cup. Photo: FIBA.com
The 2026 FIBA World Cup in Berlin is over. Now pick the 12 you would send to Los Angeles in 2028.
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Australia's World Cup ended in the quarter-finals in Berlin, Spain winning 89-66, and the rebuild for Los Angeles starts from there.
What Berlin did show is how much head coach Sandy Brondello already has but the issues she needs to fix.
Steph Talbot played 158 of a possible 200 minutes and led the team in points, rebounds, assists and efficiency at 32 years old. Isobel Borlase, 21, scored 30 against Italy in the game that kept the campaign alive, the highest single-game total by any Australian at the tournament. Alanna Smith, Jade Melbourne and Zitina Aokuso were all part of the 12, and Australia used only nine players in the quarter-final because of it.
The talent pool behind them is the deepest it has been. There were 11 active Australians in the WNBA this season and more again drafted, invited to camp or waived early, and Brondello has the luxury and the brutal task of fitting more than 20 internationals and Next Gen Opals into a team of 12.
Los Angeles is the next one that counts. The women's group phase opens on July 12, 2028, which is close enough that this squad's core will still be in it and far enough that the names below it are genuinely in play.
So build the team. Pick your 12 for LA28 and see how it compares.
Build your 2028 Australian Opals Olympic Games Team
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Depth Chart
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The only accolade missing from the Opals trophy cabinet is an Olympic Games gold medal – losing all three times to the international powerhouse United States but the gap is narrowing between the Americans and the rest of the world and Australia is poised, very poised, to achieve Australia's first Olympic Games basketball gold medal.
🏅 Olympic Games Record
From 10 total appearances, the Opals have medaled six times:
- Silver: 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing
- Bronze: 1996 Atlanta, 2012 London, 2024 Paris
🏆 FIBA World Cup Record
Australia has competed in 16 World Cups, making the podium six times:
- Gold: 2006 Brazil
- Silver: 2018 Spain
- Bronze: 1998 Germany, 2002 China, 2014 Turkey, 2022 Sydney
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