D-day has arrived for Australia's top basketball players to commit themselves for next year's Athens Olympics, Boomers coach Brian Goorjian says.

Basketball Australia included four rookies in its 28-man squad announced as Goorjian cast the net far and wide in a bid to re-build a national team hit hard by retirements.

With stars like Shane Heal, Andrew Gaze, Mark Bradtke, Luc Longley and Andrew Vlahov all calling it quits, Goorjian has called on the new breed to step up.

"We've yet to establish top players playing together," Goorjian said.

"David Anderson, Paul Rogers, Sam Mackinnon, Jason Smith, these players that we were looking on to replace (those that retired) have not trained as Boomers yet.

"It's D-day for this squad and those guys to make themselves available and get a commitment to the Boomers and start moving forward."

Goorjian is hoping Rogers and Anderson will have recovered from injury in time to join Mackinnon and Smith at the Boomers' first training camp in Adelaide in May.

The camp is one of several planned, plus tours to China and Europe if the war in Iraq and concerns over the SARS outbreak allow as the squad prepares for the Oceania Olympic qualification series in September.

"I look at the team as being way behind," Goorjian said.

"We've got a lot of ground to catch up on due to the retirement of all those great players that have taken Australia and put Australia on the map."

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