{"id":831452,"date":"2026-07-29T14:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T14:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/831452\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T14:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T14:42:14","slug":"gold-or-bust-mentality-for-gangurrus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/831452\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Gold or bust&#8217; mentality for Gangurrus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Australian Gangurrus\u2019 mission to claim gold at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow continues on Wednesday night, as both teams hit the court for their respective Semi-Finals.<\/p>\n<p>The men\u2019s team, coached by Cairns\u2019 Adam Forde, takes on hosts Scotland from 8.30pm AEST, before Damon Lowery\u2019s women\u2019s outfit clash with Jamaica at 10.30pm AEST.<\/p>\n<p>The latter, whose side features Paris Olympian Marena Whittle, two-time WNBL champion Lara McSpadden, UC Capitals\u2019 Amy Atwell and Townsville\u2019s Emma Clarke, will be looking to improve on their 2022 Commonwealth Games bronze medal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s hundred per cent [gold or bust],\u201d Whittle said on a recent episode of NBL Now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe talked about it, and at the last Comm Games, it was the first time we had just started a new cycle and were just happy to be here.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnything was amazing, so we were happy to walk away with the bronze.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut now after the experiences that we&#8217;ve had, the medals that we&#8217;ve won, the way that we&#8217;ve been playing, our focus really is gold and we&#8217;ll be pretty disappointed if we don&#8217;t get it at this rate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>A gold medal in Glasgow would cap off a strong run of tournaments for the Gangurrus women, which includes a World Cup silver medal and victories at back-to-back World Series events.<\/p>\n<p>Whittle puts this rich vein of form by the Gangurrus down to their continuity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Our success] is all about chemistry,\u201d Whittle said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBasketball skill is assumed at this level, but how you work together, how you win together is really the difference maker, and we play great basketball.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re fortunate that we&#8217;ve all been around and we&#8217;ve played a couple of tournaments together, which is wonderful.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know how we want to play, and it&#8217;s selfless. We&#8217;re all strong, we&#8217;re all aggressive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt all starts on defence, and as Dee [Damon Lowery] says, when the defence is good, you win basketball games.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Gangurrus men\u2019s team features Perth Wildcats\u2019 Jesse Wagstaff and Brisbane Bullets\u2019 Sam McDaniel, as well as former NBL players Jonah Antonio and Jarred Bairstow.<\/p>\n<p>Both the Australian men\u2019s and women\u2019s wheelchair teams will also hit the court in Semi-Final action, both taking on Scotland from 9.30pm and 12am respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Australian teams at the 2026 Commonwealth Games (All game times in AEST)<\/p>\n<p>\u200dWednesday, July 29<br \/>\u200dAustralian men: Australia v Scotland \u2013 8:30pm<br \/>Australian wheelchair men: Scotland v Australia \u2013 9:30pm<br \/>Australian women: Australia v Jamaica \u2013 10:30pm\u200d<\/p>\n<p>Thursday, July 30<br \/>\u200dAustralian wheelchair women: Scotland v Australia \u2013 12:00am<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785336134_559_6a61a5ad7c9ee09714f75730_69d47a153353ed2bdf7cd807_Article Banner_1920x250 (1).jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian Gangurrus\u2019 mission to claim gold at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow continues on Wednesday night,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-831452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}