Pool play is okay, but with the Olympics preparing to enter its second week, it is about the get real in Rio with the elimination round upon us!
United States vs. China
The top-ranked team in the world, every single victory that has been attained these Olympics by Team USA has been of the dominating variety. Even in games that somewhat felt as if they may be kept close turned out to be not so competitive.
The United States’ final pool play tilt, which as against China was no exception to this rule. It was a 32-9 lead after one quarter, a 60-26 lead at the half, and a 105-62 finish for the game.
Team USA concludes its pool play undefeated while China did not advance to the knockout round.
It is easy to sometimes get caught up in the final score of a blowout victory such as this without going deeper. After all, the final score does speak for itself sometimes. So did Brittney Griner’s play in this game as she finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds.
Tina Charles also contributed 18 points and Sylvia Fowles scored 13.
For China, outside of 16 points in 16 minutes for Mengran Sun, and 14 for Wen Lu, China’s offensive attack was held in check.
Senegal vs. Serbia
Poor, poor Senegal.
At this point, it is well-documented about the tough go of things Senegal has had—being part of Group B and suffering blowout losses to USA, Canada, and Spain.
It would not be a dominating loss that Senegal encountered in its final game of these Olympics, which took place against Serbia, but Serbia ensured that Senegal would leave Rio entirely in the loss column, defeating Senegal by a final of 95-88.
Sonja Petrovic, who has caused problems for opponents throughout these Olympics did so once again as she led Serbia with 20 points and 69 percent shooting. She also was a distributor as well as a scorer with seven assists.
Petrovic played just under 30 minutes. Jelena Milovanovic played over 30—33 to be exact and finished with 18 points. Both Ana Dabovic and Danielle Page concluded with 15 apiece.
Senegal’s Astou Traore did have 30 points and the team shot nine out of 17 from three-point range. They were also done in by 16 turnovers as opposed to only seven for Serbia.
Spain vs. Canada
The final game to emanate from the Youth Arena featured two teams advancing to the knockout stage of the Games—Spain and Canada.
Spain was coming into this game fresh off of a 97-43 blowout of Senegal. Canada, who started these Olympics undefeated by winning their first three games, ran into the buzzsaw that is Team USA and got trounced by a score of 81-51.
Thanks to a surge by Spain in the fourth quarter, they closed the deal on this one with the final game of pool play going to Spain, 73-60 over Team Canada.
That surge was sparked early in the period by virtue of an 11-0 run which increased a 49-47 lead at the end of the third quarter to 60-47 for Spain.
Alba Torrens had another big game, scoring 20 points in Spain’s victory. Marta Xargay played played just over 21 minutes but still had 13 points.
Nirra Fields had 13 points for Canada, but Spain must have received the memo on how to stop Canada from what Team USA did. They were also successful in keeping Kia Nurse and Tamara Tatham in check. Nurse was only one-for-eight from the field while playing almost 25 minutes and Tatham was only two-for-nine and played nearly 30 minutes.
Elimination Round
Advancing out of Group A are Australia, who won its group by going undefeated, Turkey (3-2), France (3-2), and Japan (3-2).
Coming from Group B are United States (5-0), Spain (4-1), Canada (3-2), and Serbia (2-3).
Tuesday:
Australia vs. Serbia (10 a.m.), Spain vs. Turkey (1:30 p.m.), United States vs. Japan (5:45 p.m.), and France vs. Canada (9:15 p.m.).
With the conclusion of pool play in the women’s basketball competition at the Olympics also comes with it a change of venue. These matchups will now be at the Carioca Arena where the men’s basketball competition has taken place. The Youth Arena will be used as the fencing venue as part of the modern pentathlon.
By: Akiem Bailum (@AkiemBailum on Twitter, Instagram)
