World of Basketball November 13th

Asia

There is only one undefeated team left in Japan as the Antelopes took care of business with a sweep of the Queen Bees, which their counterparts could not match. The Sunflowers were handed a loss in the second game by the Magic while the Red Wave salvaged a split after an earlier loss to the Iris. There are no winless teams after the Egrets stole the first game against the Sunshine Rabbits in another split series. That left the Rabbits at the bottom of the standings after being swept by the Koalas. The Wings swept the Vickies and the Cougars swept the Aranmare.

It was the first full week of play in South Korea and the last two teams to start their seasons did so on Wednesday with Park Ji-Su turning in a 30 point, 21 rebound game for the Stars in a win over the S-Birds. Woori Bank defeated Hana Bank on Thursday and BNK defeated the S-Birds on Friday. Park Ji-Su also featured in Saturday’s game with a 16 point, 13 rebound, 10 assist triple-double in a win over the Blue Minx. BNK defeated Hana Bank on Sunday. Monday’s game went to overtime before Lee Hae-Ran’s 31 points were enough for the Blue Minx to win against the S-Birds, who got 42 points from Sonia Ursu-Kim.

As with many leagues outside Europe, the Chinese league did not observe the international break even though some of their European players departed for national team duty and others remained. The big game of the week was certainly Monday’s battle of undefeated teams with Sichuan not debuting a foreign player yet despite recent news. Guangdong got close, but could not upset the champions. A battle of winless teams resulted in Henan finally getting on the board.

Europe

Most top divisions observed the international break, but some countries in Europe were not fielding teams in qualifying like Norway, which had a full round of games that included a 33 point game from Natalie Villaflor. Crina Pricob had a 30 point game in Moldova while Valeria Crismari had 10 steals for the opposition and another game featured plenty of rebounding with 21 boards for Tatiana Cecoi while Nicoleta Cainarean had 22 on the other side. Mar’Shay Moore had another busy game in Kosovo with 46 points while Jenna Mastellone had a 33 point game. Panagiota Themistokleous had a 20 rebound game in Cyprus. Bernada Rreshpja had a 31 point game in Albania. Malta picked this weekend to start their league and full rounds of play were also conducted in Latvia and Estonia.

Chase for Promotion

With top divisions mostly off, there were still lower divisions playing in places like Ukraine, where young Valeria Kutsenko had a 35 point game in the second division. Nicola Fritea also showed what she could do at a young age, grabbing 20 rebounds in a game in Romania’s second division. In Iceland’s second division, Athena ran up the score on struggling IR for a 193-31 win that featured a 40 point, 13 rebound, 12 assist, 17 steal quadruple-double from Jordan Danberry, a 46 point, 17 rebound, 14 steal triple-double from Barbara Zieniewska, and a 49 point game from Dzana Crnac. Lithuania’s second division included a 22 rebound game for Kristina Grige followed by a 40 point game to outscore the opposition that included 25 rebounds and a 20 rebound effort for Agne Antanaviciute. Portugal’s second division played a full round while lower divisions in Italy and Spain had partial rounds.