2012 Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament

[carlo]

Korea over Mozambique and Argentina over New Zealand gives already a clear indication on two groups.
Turkey is leading over Japan.

[carlo]

Control game by French team who won 56-47 over Canada, both teams have their feet in the Quarters.

[SaliH]

Watched Turkey vs Japan, but only the first half.
I was impresed by Tuncluer.

Final score is 64:49 for Turkey.
I would be great for them to participate in London.

[carlo]

Tomorrow, the only deciding game for the quarters should be Japan-Puerto Rico.

[BusterAvis]

I like Croatia's team, and think they will be in the Olympics.
I look for them to beat Korea, and then win their Quarterfinal.

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[BusterAvis]

I also like the toughness that Argentina's team shows when they need to step it up a notch.
They can play some feisty defense when they need to.

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[JGX]

Mozambique was beating Korea until late in the third quarter, TBH it was more a matter of Korea playing poorly than Mozambique playing well. Koreans need to push the pace a little more tomorrow. If you liked the FIBA TV announcers' attempts at pronouncing "Schaffartzik" a couple years ago you'll love what they did with "Machanguana".

Argentina-New Zealand: predictable close, predictably ugly. NZ had two terrible possessions down 51-49 late, finally had to send Argentina to the line where they missed both free throws but got the offensive rebound. This time they hit both to make it 53-49 with 10 seconds left, game over, right? Not so as the Argies foul 25 feet from the basket with 4 seconds left, Taylor hits the first free throw, misses the second but gets her own rebound and is fouled as her putback attempt almost goes in. Again the she goes to the line, hits the first to make it 53-51, misses the second but this time Argentina gets the rebound and is able to hold on.

Turkey: lots of decent players, well-disciplined, but you can see it'll be hard work for them to score more than 65 points against decent teams. Japan and Puerto Rico should be competitive tomorrow, maybe even an uptempo game for once.

Only saw the highlights from the last game, looks like I didn't miss anything exciting.

BTW, Cuba didn't send their team but they sent a ref?

[CKR13]

It was basically Sin Jun-Ja who lifted South Korea. Which is why her veteran presence is highly regarded in the squad. I saw recaps on Arirang TV.

[carlo]

Croatia 83 - Korea 75 in a close game that saw both teams tied 66-66, with 4' to go...

[sinobball]

Croatia 83 - Korea 75 in a close game that saw both teams tied 66-66, with 4' to go...

I had sportlemon on while doing something else, so I caught the game a little bit. Evenly matched game, Croatia slightly better at rebounds and sank a bunch of 3's at the end and that was the difference. I still stick with my previous post that both of these teams will lose at the quarterfinals to Group D teams (France & Canada) and then meet again at the 5th place (aka toilet bowl) game.

Japan just eliminated Puerto Rico and most likely will meet Korea after the quarterfinals. I think Korea would beat Japan, even though Korea had many veterans retire after last year, and also missing a few players who could come back next month (Ha Eun-ju who sat on the bench but couldn't play & younger star Kim Dan-bi) -- in other words if they could qualify their Olympic team would be better. Japan just has no size, and the Chinese girl also got cut, hopefully not for an eligibility issue again.

[BusterAvis]

Question for anyone here.
Who will win between Turkey vs. Argentina?
I think it could come down to the final possession.
I doubt the loser of that wins two in a row in the loser's bracket after the quarterfinal.
It's a winner take all kind of game. The winner goes to the Olympics, the loser has a heck of a road to get there (and probably won't win two straight after the loss).

[BusterAvis]

Current Quarterfinal matchups, and each team's current ranking in the world (current FIBA ranking in parenthesis)

Turkey (#21) vs. Argentina (#12)
Croatia (#31) vs. Canada (#11)
Czech Rep. (#4) vs. Japan (#15)
France (#8) vs. Korea (#9)

I think Japan and Korea are overrated in these rankings.
I personally see Czech Republic winning by at least 10+ points over Japan.
I see France beating Korea by at least 7 points, but probably by 10+ points as well.

Turkey is probably a little under-ranked (they are certainly better than #21 in the world).
Argentina at #12 might be a tad too high, but they're at least in that 15-20 range, and maybe 14th or 15th (which should be where Turkey deserves to be ranked as well).
That match-up looks like it can be equal overall, so it should be anyone's game.

Croatia at #31 is a joke.
They should be in the Top 20.
In fact, you could argue that Croatia is about as good as Turkey in raw talent alone.
Canada is overrated at #11.
Argentina beat them in the Fiba Americas tournament, and even though Canada is an improving team, they probably should be closer to #20 than all the way up at #11.

[JGX]

Turkey is probably a little under-ranked (they are certainly better than #21 in the world).
Argentina at #12 might be a tad too high, but they're at least in that 15-20 range, and maybe 14th or 15th (which should be where Turkey deserves to be ranked as well).
That match-up looks like it can be equal overall, so it should be anyone's game.

Croatia at #31 is a joke.
They should be in the Top 20.
In fact, you could argue that Croatia is about as good as Turkey in raw talent alone.
Canada is overrated at #11.
Argentina beat them in the Fiba Americas tournament, and even though Canada is an improving team, they probably should be closer to #20 than all the way up at #11.

Don't worry, no one takes the FIBA rankings seriously.

Didn't watch the games today, sounds like Croatia-Korea and Japan-PR may have been the best games of the group stage. I think all four Euro teams are solid favorites on Friday.

[carlo]

FRA, CZE and TUR are imo favorite tomorrow.
Canada-Croatia will be tough to decide, it's a 50-50 game, but playing in an European environment maybe Croatia has a slight edge.

[politics]

Current Quarterfinal matchups, and each team's current ranking in the world (current FIBA ranking in parenthesis)

Turkey (#21) vs. Argentina (#12)
Croatia (#31) vs. Canada (#11)
Czech Rep. (#4) vs. Japan (#15)
France (#8) vs. Korea (#9)

I think Japan and Korea are overrated in these rankings.
I personally see Czech Republic winning by at least 10+ points over Japan.
I see France beating Korea by at least 7 points, but probably by 10+ points as well.

Turkey is probably a little under-ranked (they are certainly better than #21 in the world).
Argentina at #12 might be a tad too high, but they're at least in that 15-20 range, and maybe 14th or 15th (which should be where Turkey deserves to be ranked as well).
That match-up looks like it can be equal overall, so it should be anyone's game.

Croatia at #31 is a joke.
They should be in the Top 20.
In fact, you could argue that Croatia is about as good as Turkey in raw talent alone.
Canada is overrated at #11.
Argentina beat them in the Fiba Americas tournament, and even though Canada is an improving team, they probably should be closer to #20 than all the way up at #11.

Let me put this into perspective for you for Turkey case.
Basically Turkey being #21 is kind of meanningles, those ranks are mostly based on world cups, which was not easy for Turkey to participate from Europe before.

Those ranking will change dramatically after 2014 World Cub in which Turkey will participate.

Turkey was finalist in the 2011 European Championships , won against France in semi-final and lost to Russia in final.

So next 10 years or so, Turkey is projected to be in top 10 in the world.

Teams like Japan, Korea Argentina are not on the same level as Turkey. For Argentina match tommorrow, Turkey should not have any problems beating Argentina.

So better not reference those rankings, which doesn't reflect the current situation.

Right now, only teams that can be problem to Turkey in Europe should be Russia, Czech and to some point France.

The reason of growth and development of Turkish Women basketball recently is mostly based on the strong Womens Basketball League, which I guess is in Top 3 in Europe.