World of Basketball March 10th

EuroBasket Draw

The groups were drawn on Saturday for June’s tournament with the event taking place in Greece, the hosts of the final phase of the tournament. Their group includes upstarts Switzerland as well as more established teams like France and Turkey. The group in Italy figures to be difficult for all four teams as have visions of reaching the quarterfinals. Czechia’s group is a little bit more open outside of defending champions Belgium. Germany will host Spain in another group with teams pushing to advance.

A: France, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland
B: Serbia, Italy, Slovenia, Lithuania
C: Belgium, Czechia, Montenegro, Portugal
D: Spain, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden

Asia

The last weekend of the regular season had games on a Friday-Saturday schedule. The Red Wave secured the top seed with a sweep of the last place Cougars. The Iris tied them after finishing their own sweep over the Sunflowers. The big battle was to get out of seventh place and the Sunshine Rabbits swept the Magic, who were pretty much locked into their seed, to get out of the tie with the Wings, who were swept by the Antelopes.

The playoffs have been fantastic in South Korea as the semifinals continued. The Stars evened their series on Tuesday and then the teams alternated wins on Thursday and Saturday before the top seed Woori Bank won the decider on Monday. The other series will also go to a Game 5 after BNK had extended their lead on Wednesday before the Blue Minx fought off elimination on both Friday and Sunday with home wins.

There was one series in Kazakhstan this week on a Wednesday-Thursday schedule and Okzhetpes won both games against Ertis.

The quarterfinals started on Saturday in China and there were no seeding upsets in the opening games as the road teams also won, including a narrow Shanxi win at Shanghai. Sunday was the start of the series that would determine groups for next season and there was far more intrigue. Beijing ended up being the only road team to win, cruising at Heilongjiang. That meant that the other teams from the lower group defeated their upper group foes. Fujian, which had only won once in the regular season ended up losing in their trip to Hubei, Shaanxi defeated Zhejiang, and Henan defeated Hebei.

After a long break, the next pod of games in Taiwan was played over the weekend with Taiyuan Textile pulling out wins in all three games. Cathay Life won two games while Taipower fell to Chunghwa Telecom to finish winless.

North West Tasmania

Another double-round week featured games on Tuesday and Friday for all the teams. Devonport suffered their first loss after Burnie used an impressive fourth quarter to pick up a win. Latrobe won both of their games to keep pace in the chase pack. Smithton is still looking for their first win with Wynyard just above them. Elka Hutton had one of the more impressive statlines of the week after grabbing 25 rebounds.

Americas

This was the break weekend in Mexico, but the two teams who were not able to play their scheduled games in the opening week met on Friday and Sunday instead and Mineras got the sweep over Avispas.

The season started in Brazil on Saturday with a pair of games as eleven teams are competing this season, an increase of two teams. Corinthians defeated Sao Jose dos Campos in the opener and then Maringa, one of the newcomers, won at Blumenau. Araraquara defeated Campinas in Sunday’s game. Newcomers Cerrado played on Monday and had a tough test, losing to Sampaio.

Around Europe

The winner was determined in the Central European league over the weekend in Piestany, Slovakia. Hosts Piestanske Cajky defeated Ostrava for the championship after Keshunan James had 34 points to send them to the final and Hradec Kralove bested Ruzomberok for third place. A full week in the unified Albania-Kosovo competition included a 32 point game from Brittany Byrd and a 41 point game from Alexis Tolefree. In domestic league play in Kosovo, Juicy Landrum had a 26 point, 11 rebound, 10 assist triple-double and Jasmine Joyner had 32 points in a game where her teammate Jeanae Terry recorded a 20 point, 19 rebound, 15 assist triple-double. Liliana Ikete had a 42 point game in Albania.

Thayna Silva had a 33 point game in the Adriatic. Orlovi defeated Lavovi to win the Bosnian cup. In Montenegro, Janja Beljskas had a 32 point, 35 rebound effort. The big games in the Baltic came in their second division as Emilija Grigaliunaite had 25 rebounds. Brigita Rimkeviciute had a 28 point, 10 rebound, 12 assist, 12 steal quadruple-double while her teammate Gintare Paulauskaite had a 20 point, 12 rebound, 10 assist triple-double. Oaklands Wolves defeated Sheffield Hatters to win one of the British cups while Davida Dale had an 18 point, 10 rebound, 12 assist triple-double in league play. Klosterneuburg won the Super Cup in Austria over Wels.

Chase for Promotion

Barring any unusual situation that prevents them from being able to play a scheduled game, Edremit has clinched the top spot in Turkey’s second division while Danielle Adams was the week’s leading scorer with a 32 point game. Jana Dinic had a 28 rebound game in Serbia’s second division. Sierra Smith had 22 rebounds in Portugal’s second division. Agne Birontaite had a 36 point game in Lithuania’s second division. The top teams took a break from chasing top division spots in Italy to contest a cup and Empoli edged Costa Masnaga to lift the trophy with both teams still trying to get to the top spot in their group. Germany’s second division featured a triple-overtime game and a battle of twins while Jasmine Elder grabbed 20 rebounds in the other region. Toulouse increased their lead by a game in France’s second division with a win over one rival and a loss by another competitor.

Notable Individual Performances

Madison Griggs had a 32 point game in Sweden. In Serbia, Jovana Popovic had 32 points and Marina Stojic had a 16 point, 10 assist, 10 steal triple-double. Alexus Johnson had a 33 point, 19 rebound, 12 steal triple-double in Luxembourg. A double-round week in Israel included a game where Maccabi Haifa’s entire foreign trio was excellent with Amalia Rembiszewska had 36 points, Na’Jai Pollard had 34 points, and Brittany Brown had a 12 point, 10 rebound, 17 assist triple-double. Rembiszewska had 30 points in the next game, a mark also reached by Alexis Prince and Kayana Traylor. In Iceland, Abby Beeman had a 32 point, 13 rebound, 12 assist triple-double to get her team a win after Denia Davis-Stewart had 20 rebounds for the opposition. Another game had Paulina Hersler pouring in 33 points while her teammate Brittany Dinkins had 30 points and 15 assists. Tishara Morehouse had a 14 point, 14 rebound, 11 assist triple-double in Greece. In Finland, Carmen Tyson-Thomas had 36 points and Alexis Cortez had 30 points.