Dribble Podcast: Ex-Australian Boomers coach Brian Goorjian outlines pain of Bryce Cotton citizenship saga

Frustrated former Australian Boomers coach Brian Goorjian has declared he did everything in his power to get Bryce Cotton naturalised before the Olympics but couldn’t meet the crucial criteria of guaranteeing him a position in the final team before the squad had even trained together.

Cotton is serving a four-year citizenship ban from the Australian government after he spent 20 minutes in Melbourne without a visa during 2021 as part of the process to receive his permanent residency during COVID.

The ban stunned the basketball community, but that ruling could have been overturned if Basketball Australia had told the government he definitely would have been selected in the Olympic team.

Goorjian said he wanted Cotton in the team but didn’t have the authority to pick a player before they had gone through selection trials.

“I don’t care if it was Patty Mills, you can’t say ‘he is definitely in’,” Goorjian told The West Australian’s The Dribble Podcast.

“There is a process you have to go through to get selected. You can’t have guys come into camp and they are already in and selected.

“They (players) can go through a process for justification of why they got cut. If you have people coming in that are already selected before going into camp, you’ve got a problem.

“There’s a process to go through. You can’t have guys already selected before you come into camp. It’s not my rule. It’s the government. It’s beyond me.

“All I could do in my position was say what a great human being he is, what a great basketball player he is and we want him. That was said strongly.”

Goorjian pointed to Matisse Thybulle as an obvious example of a player who would have been unfairly impacted by guaranteeing Cotton an early position in the team. Under FIBA rules, only one naturalised player or dual citizen can be selected. Thybulle - a dual citizen - won a bronze medal for Australia in 2021.

Cotton’s ban will end in February and he will then be eligible to apply for citizenship. But The Perth Wildcats star has already expressed his disenchantment about the saga and said he is no longer interested in trying to represent Australia.

Goorjian said dealing with the Cotton controversy had been one of the most challenging parts of his coaching reign.

“It is frustrating. Is the guy one of the 10 best players in the country or one of the five best players on our team? Yes,” he said.

“I felt a lot of negativity about ‘you’ve got this guy, why don’t you just do this?’ We pushed from a BA standpoint but the bottom line was an error was made, a bad error here (by the Wildcats) and it put us in a position where we couldn’t do anything.”