2016 FIBA Americas U18 Women's Championship

[JGX]

Puerto Rico looking strong in the first half against Chile. Syracuse commit Nikki Oppenheimer, who was at the USA U17 tryouts, hit four threes and Angelique Rodriguez who plays HS ball in Connecticut has 15 points.

[JGX]

PR wins 88-74, not really as close as the final score suggests. Canada didn't pull away from Mexico until the second half so it will be interesting to see what happens in this group.

Only saw a little bit of the US-Guatemala game but I guess it was as expected. Mildly surprised that Guatemala beat Honduras to qualify for this.

[carlo]

Watching Canada-Mexico from Q2, I was really surprised by Aislinn Konig performance, she hit 5/9 threes and dished out several assists. Solid game also from Hailey Brown (double-double) and Alyssa Jerome, both ex U17 WC team.

[JGX]

Puerto Rico edges out Mexico 72-71 to gain the World Championship spot...Mexico was +11 in turnovers and +15 in offensive rebounds but just couldn't convert their chances.

USA 80-59 over Brazil, 23 turnovers by the US but they were comfortably ahead throughout the game.

[carlo]

First challenging game for USA team against Brazil, too many turnovers but overall good performance in passing, shooting and obviously rebounding.

Stanford signee Mikaela Brewer was perfect in shooting (incl. 4 threes) as she led Canada with 22 pts vs weak Chile.

[carlo]

USA rolled over Venezuela 110-52. Easy win marked by some really fine plays of US girls. Jeannie Boehm (20) and Lauren Cox (14) were nearly perfect in FG shooting, while Amber Ramirez (18) hit five 3-pter. All eleven players who entered the game (Ruthy Hebard dnp) went on the scoreboard.

[carlo]

So, the logic sf pairings will be USA-Puerto Rico and Canada-Brazil. All four nations are already qualified for next year's U19 WC.

[Mika Hakinen]

Great 4th q for Canada! Bravo!

[JGX]

US smashes Canada 109-62 in the championship game. Much more talented group of US players than the U16/17 group.

Brazil beat Puerto Rico 70-64 for third place, but the highlight was PR's Angelique Rodriguez hitting 7/7 three-pointers, including a 35-footer at the final buzzer.

[carlo]

Just watched the replay, great final and entertaining game. Canada was at the same level for 1Q, that was the classic case of US team depth making the difference. Lauren Cox deservedly named MVP, she's a great all-round player who can even improve by strengthening her inside game. Maybe the most amazing US team performance was the number of turnovers, just three committed in the entire game! For Canada, Mikaela Brewer and Alyssia Jerome on top.

I agree that this U18 team looked more talented than U16/17, but still IMHO the true difference was coaching. Several U18 players are in the same class and at the same level of U16/17's. Another straight consideration: 2015 U16 and 2016 U17 were almost two completely different teams (and this was btw a mistake by USAB) but with the same coaches and producing the same failure! Just remembering some senseless players rotations of both U16 and U17, or the selfishness of several U16 players, this is something a good coach should have corrected on such young players.