World of Basketball October 23rd

Asia

Another weekend of games was played in Japan with the Antelopes, Iris, Sunflowers, Red Wave, and Sunshine Rabbits sweeping for the second week in a row, leaving the Wings, Egrets, Rabbits, and Queen Bees winless. The Aranmare swept their series to pick up their first wins while the Vickies and Magic split games with the latter getting a 22 rebound effort from Izoje Uche.

The league started in Kazakhstan this week with changes from and similarities to last season’s format. Just like last season, games will be played in bursts instead of spread out over the course of the year. Games in each pod are being played in one place again instead of a home and away format with games on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday this time in Schuchinsk. With a number of mismatches last season, the competition was organized to have the top eight teams at this level with an option of a lower division for the rest. After drawing foreign players from a limited range of places last season, teams brought in three American players and Randi Brown made an immediate impact, including games of 37, 31, and 39 points. Ukrainians are finding this to be a popular destination again as Ganna Rulyova had a 33 point game and a 30 point, 21 rebound effort. Alexandra Petelina had the highest scoring game of any local with 31 points and Viktoriya Mazur had the highest scoring game overall with 40 points in a game that saw her teammate Yana Kotova grab 21 rebounds.

The league also started in China with the traditional format returning for the first time since the virus outbreak caused the cancellation of what had been their most successful season. Without the college national team participating, the league was still able to expand to 19 teams for this home and away format. While financial resources vary greatly compared to 2020, when pretty much every team could bring in a relatively well-known player to occupy the foreign player spot, players with wildly varying pedigrees have been brought in this season with not every team being able to sign one yet. Four teams were granted the ability to sign two foreign players to maintain competitive balance. Unfortunately, all of this positive development has not included keeping the league website available around the entire world. Notable events will likely make these columns, but the level of coverage will not be where it could be if that information was available.

Around Europe

The latest scheduled start of any major European league was this weekend in Great Britain as their considerations revolve around the date of the end of the season when their final game coincides with the men’s league championship. Only the Latvian teams had started play in the Baltic before this week, but the Lithuanian teams joined the mix for the first time, including Cassidy Mihalko delivering a 30 point game. USK Praha found themselves in an unusual position on Saturday, trailing after three quarters at Brno. They recovered, but the last time that they scored fewer than the 63 points that they finished with or won by fewer than the 13 point final margin in a domestic league game was when the teams met in Game 2 of the Finals in 2014. Their former player Alena Hanusova had 30 points in another game.

Chase for Promotion

It was a double week in Turkey’s second division, but Edremit and Zonguldak maintained their perfect records in the pursuit of the automatic promotion place. Tearra Banks was busy, turning in games of 32 and 34 points. Kamaria McDaniel had the higher total after a 41 point game and Aliyah Collier had 38 points in an overtime win. The two zones of Portugal’s second division started play this weekend and highlights included Ana Pinheiro scoring 36 points and Schekinah Bimpah scoring 30 points. Ramune Eskertaite had a 30 point game in Lithuania’s second division.

Notable Individual Performances

Dariauna Lewis has certainly scored her fair share of points in her short professional career and quickly put up a 34 point game in Sweden while Raziyah Farrington recorded a 16 point, 11 rebound, 11 assist triple-double. An overtime game in Serbia saw Dragana Gobeljic score 41 points to deliver Kraljevo the win while Milica Indjic had 30 points in the loss. Trudy Walker had a busy weekend collecting rebounds in Portugal with 20 two days in a row. Maria Neto scored 38 points to get her team an overtime win while Becca Wann-Taylor, the star of the second division last season, showed that the step up is not too much for her, scoring 38 points, but coming up short against the league powerhouse in the extra frame. Marlou De Kleijn needed 37 points to get her a team a win in the Netherlands while Lotte Van Kruistum hit the 30 point mark in a blowout win.

Luxembourg was as reliable as ever for big statlines as they came in three of four games. Tatsiana Likhtarovich had 40 points to score more than half of her team’s total in a win. Karly Murphy grabbed 28 rebounds in her game. A terrific duel saw Mikayla Ferenz pour in 37 points to offset a 30 point performance from Nicole Fransson. Mar’Shay Moore endeavored to outscore the opposition herself in Kosovo and it was close, but they both ended on 50 points. Raquel Laneiro had another 30 point game with Korinne Campbell adding 33 points to the cause in Iceland. Brooklyn Pannell had 31 points in a loss that saw Eve Braslis record a 21 point, 10 rebound, 10 assist triple-double on the other side.

Lauren Manis had a 40 point game in Greece. IImar’I Thomas resumed scoring in Finland with a 30 point game while teammates Natalie Kleemann-Day and Veera Pirttinen hit that mark in another game. Lisa Sergi showed her rebounding prowess again in Estonia by grabbing 23 boards. Kennedy Gavin had a 37 point game in Croatia to carry her team to a win while Saquita Joyner racked up 39 points to turn her game into a laugher. Natasa Sobot led all scorers in Saturday’s full round in the Bosnian league with 31 points. With their opponents showing more ambition since losing the last championship series in Austria, Klosterneuburg made sure that they still had the edge in the matchup, getting 35 points from Lisa Zderadicka to seal the win. Bernada Rreshpja scored 35 points and recorded 10 steals in Albania in game where the opposition only scored 19 points.