Israeli League Semifinals Game 3
Both series continued on Monday with the hosts looking for sweeps and the visitors trying to extend their seasons. The combination of Shakira Austin and Alysha Clark made sure that Elitzur would advance 93-83 even with Jaime Nared’s terrific offensive display for Maccabi Ramat Gan. Maccabi Ashdod will join them in a high anticipated finals matchup after an 81-72 win over Alisia Jenkins and Ramat Hasharon.
https://wbl.co.il/game-zone.asp?GameId=7372
Elitzur Ramla [93]: Austin 27/8r Clark 21 Babkina 14/7a Rotberg 10 Baron 9/6r Danan 8/7a Fleischer 4
Maccabi Ramat Gan [83]: Nared 30 Alleyne 15/17r Shalom 13/6r Brown 13/9a/9s Vaturi 12 Abboud 0
Elitzur Ramla wins series 3-0
https://wbl.co.il/game-zone.asp?GameId=7373
Maccabi Ashdod [81]: Walker-Kimbrough 15/9r/7a Hiedeman 15/6a Cambage 14/7r Edelman 13/7r Cohen 13/7a Dayan 8 Sahar 3
Ramat Hasharon [72]: Jenkins 27/9r Saar 14 Collier 13 Jones 9/9r Deluty 3
Maccabi Ashdod wins series 3-0
Turkish League Quarterfinals Game 2
Three series continued on Monday as one had to be moved for continental play. It was a tough end to the season for Aysa Cora and Cankaya University as Sinem Atas and Cukurova advanced with a 120-61 win. Both teams were down a player as Sevgi Uzun and Botas were able to even up their series with an 85-64 road win. Dana Evans and Besiktas were looking for a major upset against their rivals, but Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot made sure that Fenerbahce finished their sweep with a 79-64 win.
https://tbf.org.tr/ligler/kbsl-2022-2023/mac-detay/191470/istatistik
Cankaya Universitesi [61]: Cora 24 Zellous 6 Turk 6 Yalcinkaya 5/6r
Cukurova [120]: Atas 30/6r Crvendakic 17/10r Ural 15/12r Koksal 13 Ozisik 11/11a Williams 10/10r Gray 8
Cukurova wins series 2-0
https://tbf.org.tr/ligler/kbsl-2022-2023/mac-detay/191471/istatistik
Emlak Konut [64]: Lavender 16 Sertoglu 11 Walker 9/6r
Botas [85]: Uzun 23/7a Macaulay 17/7r Gulcan 13/11r Gunay 13 McCall 7/8r
Series tied 1-1
https://tbf.org.tr/ligler/kbsl-2022-2023/mac-detay/191473/istatistik
Besiktas [64]: Evans 27 Billings 16/6r Bayram 12/12r
Fenerbahce [79]: Stewart 26/11r Vandersloot 20/7r/9a Meesseman 14/10r Stokes 6/15r Cakir 0
Fenerbahce wins series 2-0
World of Basketball
Asia
The playoffs in Japan started with a format familiar to WNBA fans with the first two rounds being single games, but all of these matchups were played at a single neutral site. Rui Machida’s triple-double led the 5 seed Red Wave to a 91-82 overtime win over the 8 seed Cougars in the first game on Saturday. Izoje Uche grabbed 22 rebounds for the 7 seed Magic in a dramatic 70-62 comeback against the 6 seed Sunshine Rabbits. On Sunday, the 4 seed Sunflowers shut the door on the Red Wave 76-69, but Uche grabbed another 21 rebounds and the Magic finished another comeback to knock out the 3 seed Koalas 78-76. The third stage started in Taiwan and Chunghwa Telecom surprised Taiyuan Textile in the first game on Friday.
Australia
All divisions of NBL1 have started play now, including the original competition for teams in Victoria and Tasmania, with teams from other states sometimes joining the South. The first week included the Tasmanian rivalry game that saw Olivia West score 31 points to lead the Launceston Tornadoes past the Hobart Chargers. Alicia Froling scored 37 points for the Knox Raiders and Abbey Wehrung had 30 points for the Ballarat Miners. The West division for teams from Western Australia also started play and Robbi Ryan had the most points of anybody in a game with 30 for the Joondalup Wolves.
Nicole Fransson was the leading scorer in the Central division with 30 points for the Woodville Warriors. Madelyn Allen had 31 points for the Southern Districts Spartans in the North division while Ariana Moorer and Samantha Bowman each grabbed 21 rebounds. Sara Matthews had 37 points to outscore everyone else in the East division, but Emma Mahady had 35 points and 20 rebounds for the Albury Wodonga Bandits and Nicole Munger grabbed 23 rebounds for the Newcastle Falcons.
Play also continued in Big V, but not for Mornington, which dropped out after three games in the third tier. Porsche Poole is one of a number of imports that the top clubs were able to bring in and she was the leading scorer for the week with 33 points for the Sherbrooke Suns. Jessica Rarity had 20 rebounds for the Altona Gators.
Americas
Berazategui needed one win at home to win the championship in Argentina and did not wait, defeating Quimsa 54-49 on Thursday for the sweep. All of the teams in Brazil have played four games now and the big game of the week was between the last two undefeated teams with Araraquara edging Sampaio 58-55 to hold the edge for now. Mieleras swept Lobas in the last series from last weekend’s rounds in Mexico. In this round, Teporacas stayed undefeated with a sweep of Racers. Destiny Campbell had 33 points in one game as Mieleras also swept their series with Quetzales, which got 30 and then 33 points from Clenia Noblet. Lobas swept their series with Lenadoras.
Around Europe
The Baltic league determined a champion over the weekend in Birstonas, Lithuania and the semifinals featured matchups of teams from the same countries. Kibirkstis prevailed 80-72 against Neptunas in the battle of teams from Lithuania. Riga Stradins University was the best team in the regular season, but Riga showed that they still reign supreme in Latvia after a 73-48 win. The top seed did win third place on Sunday 71-62, but Riga shook off a tough start to the season with a 69-68 comeback win over Kibirkstis for the championship. Bashkimi and Prishtina each won their first home games in the finals in Kosovo. Olympiacos came back in the second half to end the finals in Greece as fast as possible against their historic rivals, concluding the championship before the last two series in the consolation bracket could even begin. Klosterneuburg finished their sweep of Graz to win the championship in Austria.
Sodertalje and Lulea won their home openers in the semifinals in Sweden. The semifinals concluded with sweeps in Slovakia and Slavia Banska Bystrica got 30 points in the clincher from Zsofia Hruscakova and will be hoping that can carry over when they face Piestanske Cajky. The finals are also set in Serbia with Crvena zvezda on one side and Kraljevo surviving 34 points from Nevena Rosic to advance. Benfica is down a game after an upset as the quarterfinals started in Portugal, including a battle of island teams and Kamilah Jackson grabbing 22 rebounds. All the quarterfinals ended in sweeps in Luxembourg despite Mikayla Ferenz scoring 46 points. The quarterfinals also ended in sweeps in Germany, but Berlin had to prevail twice in overtime to pull off a seeding upset and 30 points from Anissa Pounds could not prevent Osnabruck from finishing their seeding upset. Sierra Moore’s triple-double was not enough for Espoo to advance to the semifinals in Finland. Herlev advanced to the finals in Denmark while USK Praha completed their quarterfinals sweep in the Czech Republic. The regular season finished in Iceland and Kiana Johnson started the playoffs with a 30 point game.
Chase for Promotion
The regular season concluded in Serbia’s second division and Bogdana Nedeljkov had a 42 point, 16 rebound game. Natasa Bucevac had 33 points and 21 rebounds to get a win while Jovana Radovanovic had 31 points for the other team. Chervelle Cox had 34 points and 22 rebounds in a double-overtime win to keep her team at the top of the promotion group in Portugal’s second division to offset 41 points from Hannah Armour. Becca Wann-Taylor had 35 points and 32 rebounds in her game. In Luxembourg, LeLe Grissett had 33 points and 20 rebounds in her team’s win while another team only played their starters and got 37 points from Amaya Scott, 35 points from Julie Brosseau, and 32 points from Hristina Marjanovic to get a win against Lianna Tillman, who had 35 points. Paola Ferrari had a 34 point game in Italy’s second division. In Germany, Wasserburg is trying to avoid getting relegated from the second division after so much history at the top level. France’s federal development program is mucking things up for the rest of the second division having found their way to a second win, but it seems unlikely that they can also provide one more parting strike at Monaco’s ambitions next week. Nukiya Mayo had 40 points in a bid to secure safety for Montbrison.
There is one more round in the regular season as a midweek round was followed by a set of games on Monday. Mireille Muganza had 36 points to lead Diba past Elazig, which got 41 points from Ameryst Alston. Zakyia Weathersby had 42 points in Edremit’s overtime loss. Izmit was the first team to finish their regular season and now get to prepare for the playoffs while Tarsus contrived to be outscored by 20 points in overtime. Mireille Muganza added another 35 points in her busy week and Monique Reid had a 33 point game. Ameryst Alston was on the losing end of another duel as she had 34 points in the battle of Elazig teams, but Yemiyah Morris had 37 points and 20 rebounds. Both semifinals in Iceland’s second division went the maximum length as 15 year old Kolbrun Armansdottir had 32 points in the deciding game for Stjarnan against KR, which got 32 points from Violet Morrow. 40 points from Cheah Rael-Whitsitt for Snaefell in their 100-90 overtime deciding game loss to Thor.
Notable Individual Performances
Olga Fomina had 42 points in a loss in Lithuania’s domestic competition. Anisia Puscasu had 21 rebounds in the consolation bracket in Romania. Lauren Saiki had a 30 point game in the British league. The regular season is almost over in Croatia and Ivana Ujevic had 35 points, Myriam Lara grabbed 23 rebounds, and Iva Todoric had a 25 point, 17 rebound, and 10 assist triple-double. In the Bosnian league, Ajla Ikanovic had 30 points and Andjela Demirovic had 31 points and 21 rebounds. LaSonja Edwards had 11 steals in a game in Albania. There were a lot of strong individual efforts in a busy week of games in Ukraine. Anna Yarosh had a 32 point game, which Anastasia Kostoglod surpassed with 33 points. Viktoriya Pazyuk had 30 points in one game and 23 rebounds in another. Iryna Zhmurko had a 23 point, 13 rebound, 10 assist triple-double.
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