World of Basketball February 13th

Asia

It was All Star Weekend in Japan with a unique format. The planned U19 and U22 national teams for the summer participated and then the remaining stars in the league were divided by age at the line between 25 and 26. On Saturday, the U25s defeated the U22s 71-63 and then the O26s defeated the U19s 64-53. The U19s won the third place game 76-66 over the U22s on Sunday. The vets defeated the younger players 82-76 for the championship.

Another full week in South Korea started on Wednesday with the Blue Minx defeating BNK 78-73 to maintain the edge for playoff positioning. Sonia Ursu grabbed 20 rebounds on Thursday as the S-Birds rallied for a 70-69 win over the Stars. First place Woori Bank rolled to a 94-60 win over last place Hana Bank on Friday. Kang Lee-Seul had an incredible 32 point, 22 rebound game for the Stars on Saturday to spoil BNK’s day 64-62. The Blue Minx continued to hold their position after an 86-73 win over the S-Birds on Sunday. Woori Bank looked strong again on Monday with a 76-52 win over BNK.

NWBU

The early part of the season in North West Tasmania has more games before the inter-state league starts so full rounds were played on Tuesday and Friday. Zoe Drane had a 33 point game for Somerset in their first game, but 30 points from Olivia West in their second game could not prevent their first loss. Ice Young had another 35 points for Smithton, but the highlight of the week certainly came in their second game. Young had 38 points and Savannah Au had 29 points and 20 rebounds to help them force overtime, but Mariah Payne had 44 points and Burnie also got 29 points from Millie Baker to win and stay undefeated and keep the Saints winless. Sarah O’Neill had a 30 point game for Latrobe and Ionna McKenzie had 30 points and 21 rebounds in Wynyard’s first win.

Americas

Stats have not been available for the postseason, but a champion was crowned in Ecuador this week. The semifinals were last week, setting up a championship series that opened with Aucas-Real Bolivar winning 67-53 on Tuesday. They headed on the road Friday and lost 79-67, but prevailed 69-65 on Saturday to edge out UDJ. The regular season finished in Argentina and Nadia Frete had 30 points as her team is hoping for some momentum in the playoffs. In the Southern Conference, her Pacifico will face Rocamora in the play-in game for the chance to face Obras, which finished with a six game lead in the standings. Union Florida and Berazategui will battle in the other series. In the Northern Conference, the play-in winner between Ciclista Olimpico and Riachuelo will face Quimsa, which also topped the standings by six games. Montmartre will face Instituto in the other series.

Leagues Playing in Europe

Between makeup games and countries not fielding national teams, there were still games played on the club level during the international break. Kosovo used the time to play two rounds of games as Khadija Brown-Haywood had a 31 point game. Defense took precedent in another game as Marshanique Hall had 10 steals in a 39-33 win. Olena Khoroshykh had 20 rebounds in Ukraine as Kyiv won a pair of games against Dnipro. Cassidy Mihalko got a triple-double in Cyprus before resting after an easy win. Armenia had its usual share of impressive statlines as E’moni Washington had 20 rebounds, which Shelle Daniels surpassed with 33 boards.

Chase for Promotion

Many lower leagues had games since they were not losing players to national teams. Tereza Sedlakova had 34 points for the co-leaders in their half of the third division in Spain. The double round-robin finished in Portugal’s second division and Hannah Armour scored the most points of the weekend with 32. Chervelle Cox had a 27 point, 13 rebound, and 10 steal triple-double. Breidablik lost three games this week in the second division in Iceland, including surrendering 32 points to Jayla Johnson. The great duel was definitely Violet Morrow scoring 38 points to lead KR to a 100-92 win over Hamar, which got 33 points from Jenna Mastellone.