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With Olympics almost here lets take a glance at what can we expect from teams in the next two weeks.
USA
How they got there? Won 2010 World Championships
Notable absences: Cappie Pondexter
About the team: The overwhelming favorites.
If they don’t go home with gold medals it might be one of, if not the biggest upset of the Olympics. With 12 of the world’s top 20 players on one team they can afford to do what no one else will be able to do:
- they can go 12 deep on any night, make changes in starting lineup that will not affect their dominance. Any of the 12 players would be starters on any other team in the games.
- have the athleticism to play full court press for a whole game to distract international guards who rarely experience such pressure.
Only negative anyone can say about this team is that they’ve been together for two weeks – so everyone else will have advantage in preparations, but it shouldn’t affect the vast superiority they have in skill level.
Czech Republic
How they got there? Through FIBA Olympic Qualification tournament
Notable absences: No one notable is absent.
About the team: 2010 was a magical run for the Czechs, but they’re not a top two team in the world, at least not without a home court advantage.
After missing EuroBasket Women 2011 Hana Horakova is back on the squad for what should be her final tournament with the National Team. It’s hard to expect her to be as influential as she was in 2010 when she was named the MVP of the World Championships. Back then she was playing for Brno, getting good minutes and producing. Since then she has received a pay raise on higher level teams, but has gotten a considerably smaller playing time and role on those teams.
Key player on this Czech squad will be the 190cm tall wing Eva Viteckova. She’s a career 47% shooter from both the 2 point and 3 poinzt range in EuroLeague Women (over 200+ games), so she can easily drop 20+ points on any given night. Player who can excel with teams paying attention to Viteckova and Horakova on the wing is Katerina Elhotova. Elhotova has been steadily emerging as one of the top Czech players, leading the team in EuroBasket Women 2011 with 14 points per game.
Their starting backcourt will be even taller than the US one with all three players being 180cm or taller. Overall in team height they will be among the tallest alongside Russia and USA.
On the frontcourt it will be Petra Kulichova and Ilona Burgrova carrying most of the load, with the versatile Jana Vesela getting some minutes inside. With the overall team height rebounding shouldn’t be an issue. Offense for them inside could be better though with all of the three mentioned players being more like solid complimentary players rather than a first option down the court. Against the top teams they will be more likely to get their shots from offensive boards than playing one-on-one.
Depth for this team will also be an issue. They have two solid forwards coming of the bench in experienced, perimeter oriented Vesela and the up-and-coming post Alena Hanusova, but the drop off between their starting backcourt and reserves is huge for this kind of level. Depending on how much coach Blazek trusts Katerina Bartonova, most likely solution could be Vesela playing the three to give on of the guards a breather in tight games.
China
How they got there? As the winners of FIBA Asia Championships
Notable absences: Lan Bian.
About the team: Asian champions have seen an influx of young players in last couple of years, but they still rely heavily on the likes of Lijie Miao and Nan Chen.
China isn’t your prototypical Asian team – fast and undersized. Their average team height is 5-10 cm taller than the likes of Japan or South Korea. Key to stopping this Chinese squad is limiting small forward Lijie Miao. Beijing Olympic game’s leading scorer usually steps up her game in the big FIBA championships like the Olympics or Worlds. Despite being more of a career 30% shooter behind the arc she has shot well over 40% in the final two major competitions.
Other outside threats that should be noted are Zengyu Ma and Shanshan Li. Ma was the leading shooter from distance during the 2011 FIBA Asia Championships, while Li was a 35% shooter with Jiangsu last season.
As was mentioned earlier China actually has a post game, led by the veteran 195 cm tall Nan Chen. Chen has been a double digit scorer for the Chinese National Team for more than a decade, averaging 14 points and 6.7 rebounds per game in FIBA competitions since 2001. But it’s quite possible that the biggest attention will given to 206 cm tall center Wei Wei who will make her debut in major FIBA competitions. It would be unreasonable to expect her to make a huge splash in her first competition – with her height she still seems to raw – despite good shooting percentage her rebounding and blocking is too low for one of the tallest, if not the tallest center in the world.
Depth will also be an issue for Chinese – head coach Sun Fengwu hasn’t been satisfied with the play of the young players in the lead up to the games. It’s hard to imagine something will drastically improve when they step out in the biggest basketball stage in the world.
Angola
How they got there? As the winners of FIBA Afrobasket.
Notable absences: None.
About the team: Surprise Afrobasket Women champions are bringing 11 of the 12 African champions to London.
While Angola might not lose by 50+ points like they did in Olympic Qualification tournament in 2008, they still are at least 15-20 point underdogs against all of their opponents. Being undersized they will have issues down low defending the star centers of their opponents. No one on the championship team averaged more than 5 rebounds per game against African competition in 2011.
Scoring wise the leaders appear to be 2011 Afrobasket MVP Nassecela Mauricio, Nadir Manuel, who was solid in preparations and their leading scorer from 2011 Sonia Guadalupe.
Croatia
How they got there? Through FIBA Olympic Qualification tournament.
Notable absences: None.
About the team: Croatia got a bit lucky in EuroBasket Women 2011 in order to make the top 5 and a chance to qualify.
Had Alba Torrens not gone 0 from 13 in the second round game, or Latvians and Montenegrins collapsed at the end of tournament, in all likelihood they would have not made it where they have. Judging by the fact that center Marija Vrsaljko had planned her wedding a week before the Olympics, Croatians didn’t think they’ll be pre-occupied with playing basketball at the end of July, either. Now that they’re there you can expect them to continue to be a fast paced jump shooting team.
Croatians live and die by their long distance shots. They averaged second most three pointers in EuroBasket Women (20+ per game) with most of them being in the first 6-7 seconds of offensive possessions, often enough with no rebounders in sight. As you could imagine it’s a double edge sword – on one side they can’t be stopped if they’re hitting, on the other they can take themselves out of games by continuing to fire away when the shots aren’t falling.
One thing they didn’t have in 2011 was center Marija Vrsaljko who was out with a torn ACL. Despite being just 22, Vrsaljko gives the Croats a legitimate threat down low, but she’s alone there – her backup Luca Ivankovic isn’t at the same level and power forwards are more likely to float around three point line than bang inside.
On the perimeter you can expect Sandra Mandir to be the leading figure on the floor. Mandir was among the EuroBasket Women leaders in scoring and assists, earning herself an All-Tournament team nod. You can expect Anda Jelavic, Jelena Ivezic and Ana Lelas to be influential. Croats have formidable depth at the guards, but there’s really nothing down in the middle.
Turkey
How they got there? Through FIBA Olympic Qualification tournament.
Notable absences: None.
About the team: Turkey was the surprise package of 2011. After managing to qualify for EuroBasket Women quarterfinals only once before in their history, they repeated that by defeating Belarus – a top eight team in previous World Championships and top 4 squad from previous EuroBasket Women. Once they were in the playoffs it was Birsel Vardarli show, who led her team to the final of the tournament with some huge plays.
If Turkey are to have success in 2012, Vardarli will be instrumental in those efforts. It isn’t too loud to say that she is currently the best European point guard in terms of having the best balance in scoring and playmaking skills. Right now she’s at the top of her career, having just turned 28. Other Turkish guards have a good mix of defensive, shooting and scoring abilities between them, but they have one thing in common – no one of them is taller than 175 cm, so they will be giving up 5-10 centimeters to most of their opponents.
Having such short guards didn’t help Turkey in 2011 in rebounding in which they were the worst team among the 12 that made it out of the first round. They decided to find solution to that problem in the form of an American player which they would naturalize. Among the candidates were Latoya Sanders, Christi Thomas and Carolyn Swords, but their choice fell to EuroLeague Women 2012 second leading rebounder Quanitra Hollingsworth. Addition of Hollingsworth came at the expense of another naturalized American – Kristen Newlin, who was among the team leaders in scoring in 2011.
With Hollingsworth being prone to getting in to foul trouble you should also look at Bahar Caglar playing some starters minutes during the tournament. Caglar has been the top emerging Turkish talent for a couple of years now and there’s no signs that in a couple of years she won’t be a star.
Turkey has the potential to upset one of the top five teams of the tournament. Will they manage to do so, only time will tell.
