Australia Hands USA 1st Loss on NetScouts Basketball China Women’s Tour

Carl Berman

7 May 2013

Blog

4 comments

The team has made it to Anyaun, a district of the city of Pingxiang in Jiangxi province for the next three games. The city has lined the streets with over 1,000 flags welcoming the teams to their city for the basketball tournament. There was an opening ceremony and parade of players.

The games are all televised locally. There was a sellout (3,500) for tonight’s China-Brazil game. There were 2,100 in attendance for the USA-Australia contest.

The internet connection here has not been good. We’ll try to get additional info as well as photos uploaded later today.

Australia tops USA 59-49

Australia handed the NetScouts Basketball USA All-Stars their first loss of the China tour. Australia used a 22-13 third quarter to build a lead they could hold onto and beat the USA 59-49.  Although the Americans led by one at the half, the Aussies came out strong in the third period and although the fourth quarter was relatively even, the damage had been done.

Carley Mijovic

Carley Mijovic (6’6 C) led the Aussies with a 16 & 10 double-double, Darcee Garbin had seven points and 12 rebounds.  The Aussies had 17 offensive rebounds to take control of the game.  The USA squad continues to struggle offensively, shooting a trip low 27% and making only eight FG’s inside the arc.  Fortunately for the USA, they did manage to make nine three-pointers but due to their inability to penetrate the Australian defense or find interior players, they only shot nine free throws.

The Americans were led in scoring by Jacqui Kalin and Jamie Russell who had 12 each.

Jacqui Kalin

Stephanie Talbot had 11 and Casey Samuels 14 for the winners.

Chris Denker, NetScouts Basketball USA All-Stars Head Coach

“Well, credit Australia.  Their defense was good, solid.  We missed a lot of good looks and some challenged shots.  Bottom line is when you hold someone to 59 points and 30% shooting you would expect to win or at least have a chance.  The issue we are having is not scoring points.

We finally shot the 3 decently but had our worst game from 2 at the same time.  I told the team after, we’ll keep working to improve and eventually the shots will fall but in the mean time we have to continue to play good defense – which we have really done, I’m very happy with our defensive effort…but, today we did not rebound the ball and that has to get better.”

Jamie Russell

In the second game of the day, Brazil, who had been 0-3 in the first leg of the trip, shocked China by 8 points.  Vanessa was a key to the victory for the Brazilians who played tough defense and finished drives at the basket. China struggled to make shots in the second half when Brazil took the lead.  (no stats were available at the time of this post).

Statistics

USA (49)

Meghan Fulps  (#4)  5’7  PG (Santa Clara)  0 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist

Adrian Ritchie  (#5) 5’11  G (Green Bay)  2 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal

Jamie Russell   (#6) 5’8  G (Illinois State)  12 points, 3 rebounds

Jacqui Kalin   (#7) 5’8  PG (Northern Iowa)  12 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 3 steals

Kate Thompson  (#9) 6’4  F (Michigan)  9 points (3-of-6 3’s), 1 rebound

Sam Ostarello  (#11) 6’2  F (Purdue)  7 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists

Lauren Oosdyke  (#12) 5’11  F (Northern Colorado)  3 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist

Samantha Heck   (#14) 6’2  F/C  (Evansville)  3 points, 6 rebounds

Stephanie Sension  (#15) 6’3  F/C (Green Bay)  0 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists

Morgan Johnson   (#16) 6’5  C (Iowa)   1 point, 1 rebound

Australia (59)

4 Vanessa Panousis – 3 points, 3 rebounds

5 Tiana Mangakahia – No stats

6 Alex Wilson- 8 points, 5 rebounds

7 Louise Brown – 0 points, 3 rebounds

8 Stephanie Talbot – 11 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks, 1 steal

9 Jessica Good – No stats

10 Darcee Garbin – 7 points, 12 rebounds

11 Carley Mijovic – 16 points, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks

12 Tahlia Tupaea – 2 assists

13 Lauren Schert – 4 rebounds

14 Casey Samuels – 14 points

15 Alicia Froling – No stats