FIBA Women's Asia Cup 2023

[LewisnotMiller]

One of my daughters (who is a basketball nut) and I made the trek up to Sydney for the group games in the recently finished 2023 FIBA Women's Asia Cup. Congrats to China on winning, breaking the long winning streak of Japan (who has won the last 5 women's Asia Cups).

It would have been nice to see a closer to full strength Australian Opals, but the bronze medal was nice, and they achieved their main goal of getting into the Olympics Qualification Tournament.

Some thoughts;

Japan was super impressive in person. By far the most cohesive team, very well thought through and consistent approach to the game, well suited to their strengths. Heavy on perimeter pressure and shooting (like most Asian teams), but with a trio of versatile and skilled bigs to give them balance. Everyone can hit the three, everyone can move their feet. Everyone can dribble.

China was less impressive, but Li Meng is impactful in all sorts of positive ways offensively. Han Xu is just a weapon. She dominates the paint defensively, rebounds, and is a very effective (if less versatile) offensive weapon with a combo of pick and roll, pick and pop, and offensive boards. Her above the break three is money.

New Zealand did well to make the final four and qualify for the Olympics. They weren't super impressive to me. Stylistically they are more similar to Australia, but they lack athleticism. Their key players were Penina Davidson and Charlisse Leger-Walker. They're both effective, but they could really use some more nimble and versatile 3 and D types around them to create space. I was frankly surprised they squeaked past Korea, who looked better to me.

Hard to grade Australia, as they fielded none of their WNBA players, and were missing Steph Reid (who I got to sit with for one game!)

Having Ezi Mcagbegor to anchor the middle is such a big difference maker, so I imagine our defence will be much better moving forwards. And I still think Alanna Smith can break out at some point for the national team. But I think our main area to get better at is simply around ball control under pressure and getting into our sets. Japan in particular completely short circuited our team during long stretches,band we became heavily reliant on Maddy Rocci to own the bulk of important PG minutes (which wouldn't have been the plan originally). Playing players out of position (Tess Madgen at point) or being overly reliant on youngsters (Shyla Heal) was fine until we played the top 2. Then it wasn't fine at all.

Kristy Wallace looms as a key player for that reason. Jade Melbourne is the other one we could definitely have used, but she's so young it's hard to see her as impactful. Steph Reid (mature but maybe less talented), Heal and Rocci are the other likely contenders there, along with more combo types in Madgen and Whitcomb. Sort that out and we look okay I think.

Happy to take questions if anyone is interested in any of the teams, etc. I'm expecting crickets, cos this is pretty niche, but we had literally front row seats for a stack of games, and the players were so accessible after games. Was awesome.