THE Australian Olympic Committee has named the 12 athletes who will contest the 2008 Olympic Games as the men’s basketball section of the 2008 Australian Olympic team.

With NBA 75-million dollar man Andrew Bogut and international stars David Andersen and Matthew Nielsen taking the court, that elusive Olympic medal for the Australian men’s basketball team may be in sight.

“We really have a talented group of guys going over and if we can push through the first round we have the ability to surprise everyone with our results,” said Olympian Chris Anstey, who finished fourth in Sydney 2000.

Anstey, the reigning National Basketball League most valuable player, heads to Beijing with Olympic experience and high expectations for the team.

“We’re right up there with the European teams at the moment. We have a really unique style of basketball and if the teams we play don’t adapt to it in time, we’ll have a good advantage over them.”

Fresh off the back of a challenging tour in Europe and clean sweep series against Iran and New Zealand, the Australian team is in the valuable position of returning home for a training camp before arriving in Beijing.

“We’re fortunate to have this time to fix the issues we’ve identified in Greece and get over to Beijing with the best preparation we’ve ever had,” said head coach Brian Goorjian.

The biggest test for Goorjian is blending Bogut, Nielsen and Andersen with the other players after long seasons away in the American and Russian leagues.

“The challenge we face now is learning to play together,” Goorjian said.

“The quality of players and the depth of experience we have is really exciting, but when Bogut joins us, we’ve got just eight days to make it work.”

Backing the household names such as CJ Bruton and Glen Saville will be some fresh new faces whose impact is certain to be felt both in Beijing and the coming years of international basketball.