World of Basketball July 7th

Americas

The semifinals continued in Brazil on Monday with teams trying to advance to the finals or force a deciding game on Wednesday. Sampaio was looking to win at home and advance as the top seed, but could not defeat Campinas. Ituano needed to win both games at home after Araraquara had won the opener and their comeback was just enough to set up another game. Sampaio hosted the early game on Wednesday and won easily to send Campinas packing. Ituano had the better regular season, but it was no surprise when Araraquara left with the win to advance and set up a championship rematch.

The quarterfinals started in Mexico this week with three series starting on Thursday. The teams that finished higher in the standings got to host the first two games in each best of five series. Top seed Chihuahua was tied at halftime, but eventually defeated Irapuato decisively and they won again on Friday to only need one more win to advance. Xalapa did just enough at the end to fend off Veracruz and then overcame an early deficit to expand their lead the next day. Monterrey looked set to roll only to have Aguascalientes force overtime, but they did recover for the opening win and then had to withstand another impressive comeback attempt to double their lead. The last series started on Friday and Tamaulipas made it a perfect opening for the home teams after their win over San Luis Potosi. The newest team in the league evened the series on Saturday and will now have the chance to win at home.

Another week in Puerto Rico started with a 21 rebound game for Nicole Sanchez in Guayama’s easy win on Monday. Victoria Escribano had 20 rebounds on Saturday, but Juncos lost.

Australia

Results on Sunday in NBL1’s South conference mean that the top seed will come down to Saturday’s game when the Keilor Thunder visit the Knox Raiders. Knox withstood a 31 point game from Lasha Petree for Geelong to stay tied in the loss column. The Mt. Gambier Pioneers stopped a recent slide down the standings with a win behind 30 points from Sherrie Calleia. The Waverley Falcons got 39 points from Bec Cole to stay in the playoff hunt during the final weekend.

The end of the regular season is approaching in the North conference, but there was no movement in the standings this week. The Cairns Dolphins did climb out of last place behind 32 points from Mia Loyd. It was a quiet week on the stats front in the West conference, but the Rockingham Flames now have a one game advantage at the top of the standings after the Warwick Senators lost.

The Albury Wodonga Bandits are close to a perfect regular season in the East conference with Mikayla Pivec continuing her triple-double streak with a 18 points, 12 rebound, 14 assist effort. The story of the weekend was definitely Shyla Heal though with a 51 point game being followed up by a 52 point game for the Sydney Comets. The first game was a win over the Penrith Panthers, which got 37 points from Tahlia Tupaea, and the second game was an overtime loss to the Canberra Nationals, which got 39 points from Lizzy Tonks.

There is one more game for each team in the Central conference after a busy weekend where most teams played two games. Madison Freer had 31 points for the Forestsville Eagles in their first game, but they could not complete a perfect weekend and knock the Central Districts Lions out of first place, losing in overtime. The Sturt Sabres are still tied for the lead and have plenty of momentum heading into the playoffs.

The big statline in Big V, top division came from Alicia Carline, who had 24 rebounds in a Sherbrooke Suns win. The Warrandyte Venom continue to control the second division, getting a 35 point, 17 rebound, 11 assist triple-double from Shannon Powell-Ross and a 31 point game from Emmie O’Nial. The Western Port Steelers fell off the pace, losing despite Jenna Mastellone’s 31 points.

EuroLeague

After announcing a change in format in May, FIBA announced the teams that will be competing for the EuroLeague championship in the upcoming season on Friday. With interest in the competition remaining high, qualifying games will have to be played again to determine who advances to the regular season and who drops to EuroCup. The change in format could provide some data on whether expanding the competition might make sense soon.

There is no change in the number of teams that will be competing in the regular season, but the sixteen teams will be split into four groups instead of the two groups in the prior format. After the double round-robin, the top three teams advance and the last place team drops to EuroCup. The remaining teams in the group will be combined with another group and six additional games will be played between teams that were not in the same group. After this phase, the two teams at the bottom of the standings will drop down to EuroCup. The top two teams in each group advance to the final tournament, but play in series to determine whether they get a bye to the semifinals or must win an extra game to win the championship. The teams in third and fourth place also play a series that they must win to advance to the final tournament.

The number of teams involved mean that no country will have more than two teams with automatic spots. That includes Turkey, which has the two-time defending champions of this competition Fenerbahce and Cukurova, which struggled during stretches of the regular season but was tough in the postseason. Runners up and French champions Villeneuve-d’Ascq are joined by French cup winners Bourges. Spanish champions Valencia returns with the team that finished at the top of the standings in the regular season, Avenida. Hungarian champions DVTK and runners up Sopron are involved again. Italy is the last country with two teams automatically entered with champions Reyer Venezia joined by runners up Schio. The three countries with one automatic entrant are the Czech Republic, represented by their powerhouse team USK Praha, Poland with their champion Polkowice, and Greece with champions Olympiacos.

There six teams competing for the remaining three spots and their continental competition rankings have already been used to determine which three teams will be seeded, guaranteeing that their opponents will be from the other three teams and that they will host the second and final game of their series. The seeded teams will all be looking to increase the number of teams from their country to three. French runners up Landes, Spanish cup winners Zaragoza, and Hungarian bronze medalists Szekszard earned those seeds from their recent work. Turkey is also hoping to add a third team and has EuroCup runners up Besiktas trying to knock off a seeded team. Surprise Romanian champions Constanta and Czech runners up Brno, which was previously a regular participant, round out the field.