LILLE, France -- Across her two decades plus hall of fame career, you would assume Lauren Jackson had seen it all.
"I haven't seen this one," Jackson said with a shake of her head.
The Opals star was referring to offensive execution so poor that it almost became comical as the team failed to bring the ball beyond halfcourt time after time.
When they did manage to escape the suffocating Nigerian defence, it was often in a scramble, with little resemblance to the physically dominant inside, more than capable outside offence we've seen in years gone by.
The 75-62 final scoreline was a disaster, but somehow it felt like it could have been worse.
In total, the Opals made 21 baskets on the night while committing an absurd 26 turnovers. To add more salt in the wound, the team combined to shoot a dreadful 8-for-18 from the free-throw line.
Of the eleven Opals to see court time in the loss, Marianna Tolo was the only player to not give the ball away in a truly remarkable final box score.
"The girls knew what we had to do. Sandy came in and did her thing as a coach, tried to motivate us, but we've got to do better," Jackson continued.
"Each and every one of us. Obviously, there were nerves, no doubt, but at the Olympics, every team is going to come out playing for their lives and we weren't that team today."
Jackson did connect on both of her long-range attempts, but in a rare outing, failed to score inside the perimeter or reach the charity stripe and the Opals failed to capitilise on a predicted size advantage inside.
"We didn't do much inside at all tonight. The turnovers killed us so it was really difficult to get the ball inside and then when we did, we didn't do anything with it," Jackson explained.
Contributing to the turnover count was repeated miscommunication between Opals, with the roster seemingly battling through the game to get on the same page. Marianna Tolo was hesitant to create excuses, while lamenting the lack of preparation for the roster.
"It's crazy. Even with Tokyo, this might have been the worst preparation we've had, just in terms of having so little time together as a team," Tolo said.
"The WNBA [season] has just kind of screwed us here in a sense...it gives us little time to prepare as a team and it hurts us and it showed tonight."
With just over a week together as a unit, the Opals were also dealing with the loss of star wing Bec Allen, who was projected to be a major piece of the team's success.
"One of the big points of that is Bec Allen not being here. Her being injured takes a key player out of that rotation and if we had her, maybe it would be a different story, maybe not. Coming from a different season, everyone is a little injured and that doesn't help as well for sure."
Lack of continuity and health might be underlying factors, but ultimately nobody should be looking to excuse that type of performance. If the Opals can't turn the corner and quickly, an Olympic campaign full of promise will be over before they know it.
In game one at least, Australia did not look ready for the intensity of Olympic hoops.
"I think we weren't prepared to handle that pressure," Tolo said.
"It took us too long to adjust on the fly. We'll learn from this. This hurts and it's tough but it's not over. We have two big games coming up."
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