Italian League Quarterfinals Game 2
The first two games on Sunday had visiting teams looking to extend their seasons having faced seeding upsets in the openers. Campobasso looked set to accomplish that early, but Ilaria Panzera and Sesto San Giovanni made it close at the end before falling 65-62 to set up a deciding game. Bologna quickly made sure that they would not get surprised again, winning 81-59 at Ragusa. San Martino di Lupari gave their best shot at extending their season at home in the first quarter, but Schio controlled the rest of the game for a 90-67 win and the sweep. The other series had their game on Tuesday and Leia Dongue’s best efforts could not extend Oxygen Roma’s season with Awak Kuier and Venezia finishing the sweep with a 91-61 win.
April 28
https://www.legabasketfemminile.com/MatchStats.aspx?ID=300&MID=52419
Sesto San Giovanni [62]: Panzera 21 Moore 13/10r Conti 8 Gwathmey 6/7r
Campobasso [65]: Quinonez 15 Kunaiyi-Akpanah 9/9r Morrison 9
Series tied 1-1
https://www.legabasketfemminile.com/MatchStats.aspx?ID=300&MID=52421
Ragusa [59]: Jakubcova 16 Milazzo 12/6a Miccoli 11 Thomas 7 Chidom 3/6r Nikolic 0
Bologna [81]: Zandalasini 18 Rupert 16 Cox 13/7r Dojkic 13/6a Peters 10
Series tied 1-1
https://www.legabasketfemminile.com/MatchStats.aspx?ID=300&MID=52420
San Martino di Lupari [67]: Turcinovic 18 Conte 11 D’Alie 9/8r/6a Vente 5/6r
Schio [80]: Verona 16 Sottana 13 Guirantes 12/8r/6a Reisingerova 12 Parks 11 Juhasz 8/7r Penna 0
Schio wins series 2-0
April 29
https://www.legabasketfemminile.com/MatchStats.aspx?ID=300&MID=52418
Oxygen Roma [61]: Dongue 25 Czukor 13 Romeo 7 Kalu 1
Venezia [91]: Kuier 21/7r Shepard 14/14r Fassina 13/6a Berkani 13 Held 12 Pan 8 Villa 4
Venezia wins series 2-0
World of Basketball
New FIBA Competition
In order to expand the opportunities available to national teams in the summer, FIBA introduced a new event for this cycle for the four best finishers from each continent that are not in the Olympics, splitting them into two tournaments that will award the winners spots in the 24 team 2026 World Cup qualifying event. With Kigali and Mexico City already being chosen as hosts, the teams were separated into groups on Thursday with two teams in each group advancing to the semifinals after round-robin play.
Mexico:
A: South Korea, Mali, Czech Republic, Venezuela
B: Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, Mozambique
Rwanda:
C: Brazil, Hungary, Senegal, Philippines
D: Rwanda, Great Britain, Argentina, Lebanon
Asia
The semifinals started in Kazakhstan this weekend with home sites in this round instead of the single site format. Top seed Aqtobe won both games against Tomiris. The two teams that tied them in the standings faced off and Astana started well and then had to recover again in the fourth quarter to win against Turan on Saturday. The road team tied the series on Sunday and now have the chance to win the series in their two home games. The quadruple round-robin concluded in the second division, albeit without Okzhetpes’s reserve team participating this week. Zhetisu finished with a perfect record, followed by Shymkent and Karaganda while their reserve team did at least pick up a win by forfeit.
It was semifinal weekend in Taiwan after all of the stages of the regular season had resulted in the elimination of Chunghwa Telecom while Taiyuan Textile advanced to the finals as the top seed. Cathay Life trailed at halftime in Game 1 on Friday, but had the stronger second half to get the win over Taipower. The teams met again in the same venue on Saturday, but with swapped jersey colors and the result was the same even though the game was closer as Cathay Life was actually comfortably in the lead for more of the game.
Australia
NBL1 is in full flow now including a busy week in the South conference. Keely Froling had a 31 point game for the Launceston Tornadoes while elsewhere on Tasmania that day, Alex Wittinger grabbed 22 rebounds for the Casey Cavaliers. Megan McKay had 33 points and Kelly Wilson had a 13 point, 10 rebound, 14 assist triple-double for the Bendigo Braves, but they fell victim to a massive comeback from the Sandringham Sabres, which also won another game behind 37 points from Funda Nakkasoglu. McKay had another 31 points to make sure that Bendigo did get a win. Gemma Potter had a 30 point game for the Diamond Valley Eagles.
One of the storylines last season in the North conference was Mikaela Ruef’s ridiculous rebounding numbers. She has not quite needed to hit those totals this season, but did grab 22 boards in a win for the North Gold Coast Seahawks. Leah Scott had a 30 point game for the South West Metro Pirates and Samantha Bowman turned in the biggest scoring game of the weekend with 31 points for the Rockhampton Cyclones.
Players left for WNBA training camp before this week’s games, but there were still fireworks in the West conference. Melisa Brcaninovic had 39 points in a Willetton Tigers win and then they got another win though Laci Hawthorne grabbed 20 rebounds for the East Perth Eagles. Anneli Maley surpassed that mark for the Perth Redbacks with 21 boards.
The holiday weekend meant a massive number of games in the East conference, starting with a game that saw Davida Dale record 11 steals in a Sydney Comets loss to the North Bears, who got 26 rebounds from Sarah Schicher. The Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Spiders are looking to change their fortunes this year, getting an early win before a tough loss that saw their rising star Jessie May Hall, one of the most hyped young guards in recent Australian history, score 33 points. Tahlia Tupaea scored 37 points to get the Penrith Panthers an overtime win, but they lost the next day to the Newcastle Falcons, who got 39 points from Nicole Munger. Lauren Jackson helped the Albury Wodonga Bandits break open a close game in the second half with a 40 point effort. Lizzy Tonks had 35 points for the Canberra Nationals to offset Violet Morrow’s 40 point game for the Bankstown Bruins and grab a win.
It was a double-round week in the Central conference with games on the holiday Thursday as well as the usual Saturday. Brooke Basham had quite the scoring outburst with a 43 point game in her first game, but 35 points in the second game was not enough for another North Adelaide Rockets win as Casey Samuels had 33 points for the Central Districts Lions.
There was one game in North West Tasmania on Tuesday and Wynyard defeated Penguin. The rest of the games were on Wednesday including the two teams at the bottom of the standings playing and Smithton was expected to continue a sudden win streak, but Nikki Parker had 31 points for Ulverstone to hop back up a place. Latrobe created a tie in the loss column at the top of the standings after Sarah O’Neill had 33 points to lead them to a big win over Devonport. Two teams looking to make a late push into the top half battled and Macey Crawford had 32 points for Burnie, but Zoe Drane had 31 points for winners Somerset.
The biggest scoring game in the top division of Big V this weekend was 33 points from Jamilee Pearce for Wyndham while Alicia Carline had 21 rebounds in a game for Sherbrooke. Rebounds were also the story in the lower division with Candice Rogers grabbing 24 in a game for Surf Coast and Maddi Geislinger had 23 for Collingwood.
Americas
The finals started in Mexico this weekend with the top two teams all season long facing off for the first time. Mieleras has homecourt advantage and they jumped out to a massive lead on Friday on their way to an easy win. Libelulas bounced back on Saturday, trailing for most of the game before rallying in the fourth quarter to even up the series. They will get to host the next two games midweek with the chance to win the championship.
A top trio had been emerging in Brazil, but Santo Andre looked to get closer to that group on Tuesday with their win over Araraquara. There were no games on Wednesday, but two games on Thursday meant an easy Araraquara win at Catanduva and Campinas getting past Sao Jose. Ponta Grossa suddenly looks strong, getting a win at Blumenau on Friday. An early game on Sunday morning had Mesquita winning at Catanduva. Araraquara used a strong start to win against Mesquita on Monday.
Around Europe
Sodertalje won the championship in Sweden after finishing up a sweep of Lulea. Celje won the championship in Slovenia after sweeping Triglav. The season is over in Slovakia after Slavia Banska Bystrica got closer, but could not avoid getting swept by Piestanske Cajky. Constanta finished a sweep of Arad to win the championship in Romania. Buducnost won the championship in Montenegro with decisive defeats of Podgorica in both games. Kibirkstis swept LCC International University to win the championship in Lithuania, meaning that the bronze medal series actually concluded play with Neptunas winning. Panathinaikos tied the finals again in Greece, but their great rivals Olympiacos won the last game at home for the championship. Falcon finished their sweep over Aabyhoj in Denmark for the championship. USK Praha bounced back from an upset loss with two wins over Brno and another championship.
Ana Rodrigues had 31 points help Nyon set up a surprise deciding game in Switzerland with an overtime game, but Fribourg made sure that there would be no upset with a dominant championship winning performance on Sunday. In the playoffs in Moldova, Irina Nebesnaia had 27 rebounds and Tatiana Cecoi and Maria Tambalari had 22 rebound games on opposite sides. The semifinals started in Iceland and Selena Lott had 30 points in a win. Torpan Pojat finished a sweep in Finland with Taru Tuukkanen clinching the title with another triple-double at the age of 46, recording 13 points, 13 rebounds, 14 assists. The regular season finished in the British league and included a 32 point game from Dayzsha Rogan and a 30 point game from Taylor O’Brien.
Chase for Promotion
The battle for the last spot in Turkey’s top division concluded this week with both teams looking to get the series advantage on Tuesday in Bursa. Bodrum won that game with a strong second half, but Aliyah Mazyck had 30 points on Thursday to help Bursa Ant tie up the series again. That set up a deciding game on Sunday and Mazyck had 30 points again, but Bodrum won at home. The championship was decided in Lithania’s second division this weekend and Vilnius University withstood a 31 point game from Emilija Mikoliunaite to advance to the final where they defeated Alytaus. The playoffs started in Italy’s second division, but the big effort came in the process to determine who stays in the league with Amaiquen Siciliano scoring 33 points to lead her team to victory.
The two spots for teams moving from the third division to the second division in Spain were determined this week. The group phase was played from Thursday through Saturday and there was a big shock as Barakaldo, which was undefeated in the regular season, lost twice to finish at the bottom of their group. Four teams advanced to the key games on Sunday where the winners would move up and Iraurgi defeated Arxil for the first spot. Leon, which had gotten 40 points from Cesarina Capellan to set up their game, fell in double overtime against Castello. One game is left in the group to determine who will be in the top division in Luxembourg next season and Schieren avoided last place with a win behind 30 points from Dionne Madjo.
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