Bengaluru, Wednesday, 7th September 2022: After the opening game drubbing at the hands of Australia, India will be pleased with a relatively better 47-69 loss to Korea in the FIBA U18 Women’s Asian Championship underway at the Kanteerava Stadium.
Unlike world #2 Australia with its perfect combination of skill, size, strength and stifling defense, India would have been relieved to face an opponent that relies largely on its outside shooting prowess.
Failure to launch
Yet again though, for the second straight game, India was guilty of a slow start, allowing the Koreans to surge to a 20-8 first quarter lead.
In both the initial quarters, India was unable to score in double digits, managing only 15 total points going into the break. India trailed 15-30 at halftime.
India’s second half improvement
The second half finally saw India’s offense starting to make an impact. Led by centre Yashneet Kaur’s individual scoring, and contributions from six others, India matched Korea shot for shot.
But just as India was threatening to make a game of it, the Koreans went on a 7-0 scoring run to enter the final ten minutes with a decisive 23 point lead. The visitors’ 12 made threes proved to be the difference compared to just three long range shots for India.
India takes on fellow winless team New Zealand in their final group game tomorrow. Both sides are out of contention for the semifinals. But considering the similar margin of defeats suffered by New Zealand against Australia and Korea, India will be gunning for an unlikely upset.
India (Yashneet Kaur 13 pts, Bhumika Singh 10 rebs) lose to Korea (Seongjin Park 15 rebs, 10 pts & 4 blk) 47-69 [8-20, 7-10, 13-21, 19-18]
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Next up: 0-2 India vs 0-2 New Zealand on 8th September at 6pm IST. All games are being streamed live on the FIBA YouTube Channel as well as Doordarshan.