World of Basketball June 2nd

Americas

There were a handful of games before the All Star festivities in Brazil and Campinas defeated Ponta Grossa on Monday before Sampaio breezed past Catanduva. The last game before the break was on Tuesday with Mesquita defeating Corinthians. That All Star game was on Thursday with skill competitions starting the event. Ineidis Casanova won the skills challenge, Lays Silva won the three point contest, and Milena Rodrigues won the one-on-one tournament. The game itself had team captains Erika De Souza and Sassa Goncalves picking their teams and it was Team Sassa that took the lead by halftime on their way to the win. The regular season resumed on Sunday with a Araraquara win over Campinas.

Two series in Mexico were on a Thursday-Friday schedule this week and Xalapa swept Leon while Veracruz had to grind out their two wins over Aguascalientes. In the Friday-Saturday series, Irapuato won in overtime in the opener, but Chihuahua avenged their defeat the next night. The Saturday-Sunday series saw Monterrey defeat San Luis Potosi twice.

The main professional league in Puerto Rico has had its share of news during the offseason, announcing a salary structure and cap for local players. Last month, they also announced an agreement with another league on the island, the LBPF, to start harmonizing schedules and setting parameters for players who can play in both leagues. The LBPF, which includes teams from a number of prominent sports clubs that do not field teams in BSNF, started their season with an eight game weekend.

Australia

The Keilor Thunder remained alone at the top of the standings in the South conference in NBL1, but it took an overtime win on Saturday. The Hobart Chargers won their Tasmania rivalry game despite Keely Froling’s 39 points for the Launceston Tornadoes. In the West conference, Anneli Maley had the highest scoring game with 30 points while her teammate Natalie Chou recorded a 20 point, 10 rebound, 14 steal triple-double in an easy Perth Redbacks win over the East Perth Eagles. Teige Morrell had 20 rebounds in a Lakeside Lightning loss. It was a quiet Saturday in the Central conference ahead of next week’s holiday break.

In the North conference, the Northside Wizards stayed perfect and increased their lead thanks to their win over the Townsville Flames. The other team a game back of them, the North Gold Coast Seahawks, were missing the division’s top scorer and lost in overtime despite Mikaela Ruef’s 33 rebounds. The Cairns Dolphins are still winless even after 34 and 35 point games from Mia Loyd. Lil Dart had 33 points to lead the Brisbane Capitals past them on Friday and then it was Ariana Moorer with a 12 point, 10 rebound, 11 assist triple-double in a win on Saturday for the Southern Districts Spartans. In a battle of teams trying to stay in the top four, the Rockhampton Cyclones got 31 points from Samantha Bowman and a 16 point, 10 rebound, 10 assist triple-double from Lauren Heard. Kate Deeble had a 34 point game for the Gold Coast Rollers as she continues to have a strong season after her time in college.

In the East conference, the Albury Wodonga Bandits were missing their star for national team duty, but Unique Thompson had 32 points and Mikayla Pivec recorded a 27 point, 11 rebound, 12 assist triple-double to lead them to a win on Saturday. The absence made their next game closer, but they were able to stay perfect on Sunday. Tahlia Tupaea had the highest scoring game with 36 points for the Penrith Panthers followed by Nicole Munger’s 35 point game for the Newcastle Falcons. Aliza Fabbro had 31 and 30 point games in a pair of Sutherland Sharks wins. The former came in a win over the Bankstown Bruins, which got 32 points from Park Ji-Hyun as she made the decision to leave the Korean league to build her profile for a planned move to Europe.

The playoffs started in North West Tasmania and the first game was an elimination game on Tuesday. After a close first quarter, third place Penguin breezed past fourth place Wynyard to advance. The other game was on Wednesday with the first spot in the championship game awarded to the winner and second place Devonport won against top seed Latrobe to secure that spot.

In the top division in Big V, Veronika Mirkovic had a 32 point game for the Sunbury Jets and Eleni Valos had 35 points in a Camberwell Dragons loss. In the lower division, Kylah Collins had a 30 point game for the Wallan Panthers and Kelly Foster had a 31 point game for the Chelsea Gulls. The Warrandyte Venom had a pair of big statlines with Emmie O’Nial grabbing 21 rebounds on Saturday and Shannon Powell-Ross pouring in 46 points on Sunday.

Europe

A handful of games were played across Europe this week. The championship in Croatia came down to a deciding game on Tuesday and Ragusa controlled the fourth quarter to win at Tresnjevka. The other team to get promoted to the top division in Greece and have to start preparing for a world where they need to sign foreign players is Amyntas, which won the deciding game on Sunday in a series against Ionikos where all games were decided by a single point. The two teams promoted to the top division in Italy were also decided after Alpo finished a sweep of Udine on Wednesday and Derthona joined them on Thursday after another win over San Giovanni Valdarno. Grasshoppers defeated Lions for the championship in the Netherlands on Wednesday. Bigger clubs are continuing to move up the pyramid in Portugal, including Sporting, which won the third division championship game against Povoa. Both teams had already secured promotion along with Belenenses, Ginasio, Academico, and Braga. Trencin knows better than anyone else having been dragged up to the top division for emergency duty this season, but they lost on aggregate to Dubcek Bratislava of the second division on Thursday for the theoretical last spot in the league in Slovakia.