2017 FIBA U19 Women's World Cup

[carlo]

No upsets in Ro16, closest game was Australia vs Latvia, with Gems somewhat repeating their poor performance against Japan. They will need to play and shoot much better on Friday vs Russia.

France and Spain played today much better games with comfortable wins. Italy started well with the usual tight defense, but Spain took soon advantage of poor outside shooting and some too many turnovers of Italian side.

Russia lost injured Raisa Musina in the 2nd half, hopefully it's not too bad and she can recover for next games. She's the captain and is fundamental for the team.

US team set today new records in its U19 history for assists (Tyasha Harris, 10) and team's rebounds (72).

QF:

USA vs France
Spain vs Japan
China vs Canada
Russia vs Australia

[sinobball]

I have mixed feelings about Han Xu, the 6'9'' center of China. On one hand, I see better physique, as well as noticeable improvement on the offensive end since last year in terms of post moves and range. But she's too passive on defensive boards. It's fine if you can't grab them, at least bend your back, box out, or get into position. I do think fatigue/conditioning has something to do with it.

I worry she will turn out to be Wei Wei II (Wei Wei is the 6'9'' center that played in 2012 London as a youngster, but had since shown to be too useless for the national program.) Han Xu clearly has better athleticism, but she needs to improve a lot defensively if she wants to be a key player in the national team. (She will definitely make it based on her potential.) Li Yueru who was also born in 1999 is already killing it in the adult level because among other things she plays defense (not well yet, but the effort is always there) and goes after rebounds.

BTW, I'm watching the Asian Women's Cup, and Park Jisu of South Korea, who was a major star in the junior level for so many years (and in fact is still eligible for this u19 tournament) is completely mediocre now. Tall players need to have extra motivation to improve because too often they play against midgets and don't make an effort to box out or get into position, because they can just get by. China is lucky Li Yueru is already a pro player and practices with Yelena Leuchanka, a great 2-way player, daily in her club. Han Xu is still playing in the high school league against sub-180cm centers, and a few months of national program training isn't going to correct all the bad habits.

[JGX]

US team set today new records in its U19 history for assists (Tyasha Harris, 10) and team's rebounds (72).

28 offensive rebounds in the first half has to be a record as well, although not a particularly admirable one. US took a lot of long twos early in the shot clock.

Djaldi-Tabdi played for France today so I guess she is okay. Lots of competitive matchups in the quarterfinals.

[carlo]

Australia surprisingly leading over Russia 25-22 at ht, despite playing without injured Maddison Rocci. Extremely physical game, many fouls whistled (24), Russian team has clearly the edge under the boards but low productivity and its best player Vadeeva with 3 fouls. Musina is in but she's just 1/11 on shooting. Russia limited to just 7 points in Q2.

[carlo]

Great 2nd half, with Russia winning 67-65 a game they were leading by +14, which became a thriller in the final minutes thanks to the heroics of Jazmin Shelley (26 pts). But the winning hero was Vadeeva, who scored a 2 FT with few secs remaining and finished with 28 pts and 14 boards. She's on the way of becoming the tournament's MVP.

[carlo]

Historic sf for fast paced and sharpshooting Japan, that dismantled Spain. Japanese team really played with so much more energy than Spain today.

A good second half allowed USA a comfortable win over France. Carter, Harris, Alarie and Holmes on top today. US team didn't share the ball well, except for Harris (6 assists). Lackluster performance of France after a good start, especially on shooting.

Canada-China nearly ended in a thriller after the game led by the Canadian team (+10) was almost tied towards the end. Excellent performance of athletic Amihere who was opposed to gigantic Han Xu (she can reach anything with her hands and today she finished with another double-double and 7 blocks).

For the record, first win ever at U19 WC of Mexican team (over Egypt).

[JGX]

Only able to see a little bit of the US-France game today but beating a tall and athletic French team by 27 is pretty good. Nice to see Canada get past the quarterfinals too.

Really interested to see the US-Japan game...Japan is having a great tournament but historically they don't match up with the US at all:

2016 OLY 64-110
2013 U19 67-108
2011 U19 63-85
2010 U17 71-133
2009 U19 68-109
2007 U21 57-98

East Asian rivals Korea don't fare any better:

2010 WC 44-106
2008 OLY 60-104
2016 U17 45-104
2012 U17 89-131
2007 U19 69-113

[carlo]

The final will be USA-Russia, a repeat of 2015 WC.

Russia easily beat Canada in a one-sided game that was already decided after 10'. The final result doesn't reflect the difference between the two teams, as Russians led by 30+ points after the intermission. From Canadian side one of the few interesting moments was the attempted dunk of Amihere after she stole the ball at midcourt (3' remaining Q3), she jumped high but the ball hit the glass. Musina super for Russia and team's great outside shooting (11 threes).

USA took care of Japan with 25' of fine play, leading by 20+ points. Relentless Japan rallied back in Q4 (23-8) with US team losing focus and greatly reducing the margin to a single digit victory. Ahead 63-36 (max lead) late in Q3, US team lost Sutton who was accidentally elbowed on the face and fell to the ground hitting the head. She didn't return to the court, hopefully she can recover for tomorrow's final. Hebard on top tonight, but worrying contribution from other teammates (4 players scored 64 of team's 73 points).

[JGX]

Man, what a game. Once again the team with the dominant bigs won, but for once it was not the US. No complaints about the US team though, they competed with everything they had. Hopefully the Russians bounce back at senior level soon.

[carlo]

Great final and great game of Russian bigs (Musina and Vadeeva scored together 59 pts and collected 29 rebounds) and of the US backcourt (Carter, Harris and Dangerfield, finally!). Russia takes its first gold since 1989, last time it was still Soviet Union. Duo Musina-Vadeeva was simply too much for everybody and for USA as well, not to forget that both Russian players are high level pro already, while US team was made of high school and first year college players.

Canada took an historical first medal, holding off Japan for the bronze in a game where Amihere once again shined and Japanese shooters were strangely ice-cold (they gave it all yesterday probably).

Disappointing tournament end of unlucky Australian team, anyway capable of pushing the game against unbeaten Russia close to overtime.

All-Tournament:

Laeticia Amihere (CAN)
Chennedy Carter (USA)
Tyasha Harris(USA)
Raisa Musina (RUS)
Maria Vadeeva (RUS) and MVP

[JGX]

Fun Fact: Both US U19 women's team to not win the championship this century had a post player from Alaska (Ruthy Hebard and Jessica Moore). And the worst-ever US U19 men's team (1995) had Trajan Langdon. Maybe it's time to make Alaska field their own team, like Puerto Rico?