2012 Women's Olympic Tournament

[carlo]

The two groups composition has been defined after the OQT draw and Canada's last qualification:

Group A: Angola, USA, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Turkey

Group B: Russia, Australia, Great Britain, Brazil, France, Canada

The Olympic tournament will start on July 28.

Here's the preliminary round games schedule.

[carlo]

The official Fiba preliminary round schedule.

[sinobball]

Group A seems to be the much easier group. I predict, the 2nd placer from Group A will lose to the 3rd placer from Group B in the quarterfinals.

[JGX]

GB knocks off France 74-67:

http://www.fibalivestats.com/matches/20589/05/64/89/42ZzM0b25P56/

[carlo]

Watched 2nd half on TV, GBR showed a tight defense while French team had very bad shooting from the distance, most of the baskets coming inside from their bigs. Natalie Stafford killed the French in the last minutes with her shooting.

[carlo]

G/F Iziane Castro Marques has been cut from Brazilian NT for "indiscipline actions off the court".

http://lovewomensbasketball.com/2012/07/20/brazil-cut-iziane-castro-marques-8-days-before-olympic-tournament/

http://www.cbb.com.br/Noticias/Show/10064

That's a big blow for Brazil, since Iziane could offer experience and scoring weight for the team. In the 3-game series lost to Australia end of June she scored 26, 13 and 18.

[carlo]

In Lille International tournament, France-Brazil 67-57, with 17 pts of Sandrine Gruda. Brazil's Clarissa also scored 17. In another game, Australia dominated China 84-53, behind 17 pts of Lauren Jackson and 16 from Belinda Snell.

[carlo]

Group A preview:

http://lovewomensbasketball.com/2012/07/26/olympic-basketball-tournament-preview-group-a/

[carlo]

Group B preview:

http://lovewomensbasketball.com/2012/07/27/olympic-basketball-tournament-preview-group-b/

[sinobball]

G/F Iziane Castro Marques has been cut from Brazilian NT for "indiscipline actions off the court".

http://lovewomensbasketball.com/2012/07/20/brazil-cut-iziane-castro-marques-8-days-before-olympic-tournament/

http://www.cbb.com.br/Noticias/Show/10064

That's a big blow for Brazil, since Iziane could offer experience and scoring weight for the team. In the 3-game series lost to Australia end of June she scored 26, 13 and 18.

Looks like it'll be the 2nd consecutive Olympics that she's unable to participate due to getting expelled from the NT. This is just... wow. Meanwhile there are so many girls around the world who work their butts off for that Olympic dream but couldn't due to limited spots.


I'll have to watch the first game at 4AM here, never watched an Olympic WBB game in my life, excited. Unlike our men's team, which is as healthy, experienced and complete as can be, our women's team have major problems in all of the areas but I know they will give it their all. Let's go.

[JGX]

Lauren Jackson looked to be having a bit of trouble handling the Australian flag.

[sinobball]

Miao Lijie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[carlo]

Very important win of China over Czech Republic in the opener, and a bit surprising indeed.

[sinobball]

Very important win of China over Czech Republic in the opener, and a bit surprising indeed.

Ugly game. China played average, Chen Nan and Chen Xiaoli the 2 big veterans bricked way too many mid-range shots and gave up too many defensive rebounds, but Czech Republic was not fundamentally sound, couldn't even make layups despite all the offensive rebounds, or free throws. (I also need to add, refs were clearly biased against China, it's disgraceful.) Also how did Horakova win the Worlds MVP 2 years ago, did she suffer a serious injury or something these years? Because I've watched both the Czech Republic-Japan game last month and this one, and to put it simply, she sucks.


Canada now with a big lead over Russia early on... European teams overrated?

[carlo]

Russia seems to be another team with troubles, the prelim campaign wasn't exciting and the integration of Becky Hammon at the very last moment can be more negative than positive.
Btw, Can-Rus looks to be a low scoring affair, with a lot of missed shots.