Tokyo 2020 Wheelchair Basketball: Women's Quarter-Final Day Round-Up
Four very legitimate teams set the gauntlet for a great semi-final round.
Every day throughout the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, I will be bringing you a round-up of the goings-on in the Wheelchair Basketball event. My Bench Units co-host, James MacSorley, is actually competing in the Paralympics and so has better things to do than write up details of the games.
As you may know, the Tokyo Paralympics are taking place in Tokyo. Tokyo is 8 hours ahead of the UK, so some of the games are happening in the dead of the night for me.
I’m making it my mission to watch as many of the games as I can so I can do the best possible write-ups here. If I don’t get the chance to watch a game, I’ll state that up front and my review will be based on the stats, plus any educated guesses I might have, or anything that sounds plausible enough that I can say I heard it from James and blame him if it’s incorrect. I promise I’m not biased for or against any teams.
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Let’s get into it…
Note: Today was quarter-finals day for the Women’s competition, so I haven’t bothered to put “(Women)” next to each game.
9th/10 Playoff Game: Australia 71 - 32 Algeria
1am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Australia by 20
Australia close out their tournament with a win, taking it to Algeria with a 27-8 first quarter and cruising from that point on. Cruising with a lead is widely discouraged by coaches, but I think you get some wiggle-room when you’ve nearly matched my win prediction margin after one quarter.
Australia were carried once again by Amber Merritt and Georgia Munro-Cook, with Merritt nearly matching Algeria’s total on her own (27 points) and Munro-Cook chipping in 14 and 5 rebounds.
I hope I don’t come across as elitist when I say that there isn’t much to report on here. These two teams were clearly the weakest in their respective groups, but that was much more the case for Algeria than Australia.
I guess the question from this point is what paths there are for these teams to improve. Australia have the better setup and infrastructure for player development, but have lost standout players with the classification rule changes and some of their veterans won’t be around forever. They’ll need some talent to emerge if they’re going to support the efforts of their (still relatively young) forwards.
QF1: (A2) Canada 48 - 63 USA (B3)
4:30am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: USA by 6
I’ve spent the entire women’s group stage feeling bad for not including Canada’s Kady Dandeneau on our Bench Units Ones To Watch, and I’ve looked over the list we published a couple of times to see who we should have bumped off to accommodate her.
It’s still confirmed, but I think this game is a good enough reason to conclude that it won’t be Rose Hollermann. This game was by no means a 1-on-1, but it was something of a study in a world-class player who can be slowed down by a defense versus one that can’t.
Rose lead the USA with 19 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists, and got huge support from a starting unit that combined to play all but 2:36 of the game. Natalie Schneider had 18 points and 9 rebounds, while Lindsey Zurbrugg and Courtney Ryan each put in 10 points. Ryan also had 7 rebounds and 13 assists for good measure.
When the USA produce across the board like that, most teams are going to struggle. Canada have got by all tournament on the back of superstar-level production from Dandeneau and solid contributions from everyone else but, similar to what we saw in yesterday’s Japan/Turkey game, that formula doesn’t work when the opponent has the objective and personnel to put the superstar player in handcuffs for 40 minutes.
It took Dandeneau 15 shots to get her 8 points, and the rest of the Canadians were similarly inefficient, finishing the game on 34% shooting as a group.
The USA go on to play China in the semi-final, where they’ll look to avenge their one-point loss from the group stage. Canada will take on Japan in the 5th/6th playoff.
QF2: (A1) Germany 57 - 33 Spain (B4)
7am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Germany by 31
Maybe Germany don’t know the difference between group games and knockout games. The way they’re playing, I imagine they see that kind of technicality as part of the small print when they sign up for another win.
The scary part is that Germany got such a comfortable win even with their two main sources of offense having relatively quiet performances (by their standards this week, anyway).
Mareike Miller and Katharina Lang put in 27 points, 19 rebounds and 14 assists between them. We should really just call that kind of combined stat inflation “Asier Garcia numbers” until proved otherwise.
It wasn’t the best performance of the tournament by Germany’s twin-towers, but it was enough of a platform to allow the consistent production from their role-players to lift them over the top of Spain.
Virginia Perez did her best to battle with the German bigs, finishing with 13 points, but wasn’t anywhere near enough on her own to give Spain the chance at an upset.
This result lines undefeated Germany up on a date with the Netherlands, whose only loss is against the also-undefeated China. With similar styles of play and ability to match each other inside and out, this semi-final could make for some pretty lethal viewing.
Spain will play for 7th and 8th place, against the loser of…
QF3: (B1) China 47 - 33 Great Britain (A4)
10:15am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: China by 14
Ok, first things first. This game marks a great moment in my career as whatever my job title is at Bench Units.
Whatever my title was, I am very honoured to be snatching the crown of Bench Units’ Resident Oracle. Take that, Anna.
(Yes, it was Anna who got 4 games predicted within 2 points on the same day. She was too proud of herself to put her reputation at risk with another day of predictions. I have no such qualms.)
Man oh man, did China ever win this game by exactly 14 whole basketball points. One glance at their statsheet will show you that it was meant to be:
The number is everywhere. There was no way to avoid it, apart from in the selection of jersey numbers, where at least one of the Chinese ladies really missed out on a chance to wear the number that I will legally be shifting my birthday to.
Overall, a great day for a number that I never knew I had such a strong connection to, at least not until I went back to yesterday’s article to remind myself what I’d predicted, and then quadruple-checked what 47 minus 33 was on every calculator I could find. I never trusted calculators since the I had one of those scientific ones at school. My teacher showed me that it had different modes, and if you put the same calculation into it in two different modes then the outcome was different. That’s not how numbers should work. I also found out that one of the modes he’d demonstrated to me was called “maths mode”, which really called into question what he’d been teaching us up to that point. Deal is, all is forgiven between me and the calculators of the world. They may have the facility to twist numerical results to suit the user, but I can now comfortably say that I’ve outgrown the need for such gimmicks. Long live the number 14.
As was covered earlier, China get another crack at the USA and GB play Spain in an opportunity to salvage some pride after a disappointing tournament.
QF4: (B2) Netherlands 82 - 24 Japan (A3)
12:45pm UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: USA by 22
Ah, back to my usual predicting accuracy.
Does anyone Dutch Women-affiliated seriously read this thing? I know Mendel is kind of an honourary part of the Bench Unit now, but he’s only popping in to guest-host a podcast. Surely he doesn’t need the exposure so badly that he’s belling up his women’s national team to read this blog before his big appearance.
I wonder this because I’ve become aware that I may have been undercovering the Dutch, just a bit. Germany and China have both surprised me with their play, and Bench Units has to have some investment in Rose as she’s a former guest and a One To Watch, plus we have to keep all of James’ former teammates sweet so that his future teammates don’t think we’re just going to use them for guest appearances while they’re at his disposal.
All that is to say that this game screamed “We’re still here!” Put simply, the Dutch women are a fearsome bunch, and have been for long enough that maybe idiots like me take it for granted until they put a performance like this out.
Mariska Beijer (also a One To Watch, so it’s not like we’ve ignored them completely) had one of the best games of the entire women’s tournament. She racked up 38 points and 11 rebounds in only 27 minutes, and the whole first quarter looked kind of like the first appearance of the villain in a superhero movie.
The Netherlands were so dominant on both ends that I’m having a hard time finding a stat that captures it fully. I won’t pick out individual Japanese stats, as it feels a little unfair, but their top player in terms of field goals made had 2. 2 made shots. Mariska had 19, which is 8 more than Japan converted on as a squad.
And so we get to find out if Mariska can go full-on Incredible Hulk against a team, in Germany, that is a little bit more kitted out to play the size game. I can’t remember who gets brought in to fight the Incredible Hulk in the movies, but I hope Germany are better than that because all those movies suck.
Japan will shake off the dust and play Canada, looking for a 5th-place finish and closing win in front of their home crowd.
Up Tomorrow… Women’s Quarter-Final Day!
Borrowing an old Bench Units gimmick that myself and Ben Fox (also in Tokyo - really need some colleagues who aren’t too good for me) used for the World Championships in 2018, I’m going to list out tomorrow’s schedule and my predictions for the results, based on almost nothing at all.
1am - 11/12 Playoff - Colombia vs Algeria - Colombia by 23
3:30am - (A2) USA vs Turkey (B3) - USA by 19
7am - (A1) Spain vs Germany (B4) - Spain by 9
10:15am - (B1) Great Britain vs Canada (A4) - GB by 14
12:45pm - (B2) Japan vs Australia (A3) - Australia by 3
This has been fun. Keep an eye out for today’s podcast episode!