A number of Australian referees have been announced to officiate at upcoming tournaments in both 5x5 and 3x3 basketball.
Joining the Australian Boomers at the FIBA World Cup in China between August 31 – September 15, Scott Beker and James Boyer have been named referees for the tournament. This will be the first men’s World Cup for both officials although Boyer refereed at last year’s FIBA women’s World Cup after featuring at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and 2017 FIBA Asia Cup as well. Beker (270 NBL games) has World Championship experience dating back to 2007 when he refereed at the FIBA Under-19 women’s World Cup while going on to officiate at the 2016 Rio Olympics, 2017 FIBA Asia Cup and through the 2018 FIBA World Cup qualifiers. Beker and Boyer will also officiate at the FIBA Under-19 men’s World Cup in Greece this year between June 29 – July 7 alongside NBL and WNBL referee Nicholas Fernandes. The FIBA Under-19 women’s World Cup follows from July 20-28 in Thailand and John Rearden, Basketball Australia’s National Federation Referee Instructor, has been appointed as FIBA’s Referee Instructor for the tournament. Sarah Carey will officiate at the tournament after 90 games in the WNBL as well as experience at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and the 2017 Under-19 women’s World Cup. Prior to that tournament, Carey will head to Italy alongside Jon Chapman for their second World University Games campaign between July 3-14. Chapman has tallied over 100 games in the NBL and WNBL while also refereeing the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. The Australian men and women qualified for the FIBA 3x3 World Cup earlier this month and they will head to Amsterdam from June 3-7 alongside referee Vanessa Devlin who has previous experience at the 2018 Under-18 men’s Asian Championships as well as 71 WNBL games. Finally, the 2019 Pacific Games, a multi-sport event in the same vein as the Olympics but exclusively held for countries around the South Pacific Ocean, tips off on July 7 and runs until July 20 in Samoa. Steve Nicholls has been appointed referee supervisor for the tournament while Craig Copes and Guy Richards will officiate both the 5x5 and 3x3 competitions after they featured at last year’s Under-15 Oceania Championships. Congratulations to all officials.
