U.S. and Australia set to meet in major final for first time in 10 years
SAN CRISTOBAL de la LAGUNA, Spain – The United States and Australia have won the past five FIBA Women’s World Cups, but one thing we have never seen is a championship game between the two.
The U.S. broke away from a pesky Belgium team in the third quarter to win, 93-77, while the Opals won the nightcap over host Spain, 72-66, to set up the heavyweight final on Sunday.
We became accustomed to the Americans and Australians meeting in Olympic finals, having done so in three-consecutive Games, between Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008, but the two have never met in a World Cup final. The championship in Athens at 2004 not only featured both coaches in their playing stage, Dawn Staley and Sandy Brondello, but a young Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi, as well.
“This is why you play,” Bird told High Post Hoops. “Something that gets overlooked is just how difficult this is for us. I know you see the scores at times, and it looks like everything is easy peasy, but every other country is trying to take us down, and we only have this much time (holds fingers close together) to prepare. When you enter these competitions, you have to be extremely focused, individually and as a team.”
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The U.S. was only ahead 40-39 at halftime in its semifinal. Even with Taurasi executing three three pointers in the first two minutes of the third quarter, the Belgians hung around until an 8-0 U.S. run they never recovered from. Taurasi ended with a game-best 26 points, and Emma Meesseman scored 23 for Belgium.
“It’s always a challenge,” Taurasi said of playing in the World Cup. “It’s grueling, six games against the best teams, three in a row to try and win it, so it’s more of a mind or matter at this point.”
Australia opened with a 21-6 lead, only for Alba Torrens to knot the contest at 30-30 with a three at the three-minute mark of the second quarter. Spain, attempting to set up back-to-back gold medal games featuring the same teams for the first time since the U.S. and Russia in 1998 and 2002, held a 58-50 lead to end the third quarter. Opals center Liz Cambage managed to play through the end with four fouls and completed her night with 32 points and 15 rebounds.
Cambage said advancing to the final felt as if she had a weight lifted off her shoulders due to the success of the team in the decade before her arrival. Earlier this week she noted that winning a bronze medal at London in 2012 was a highlight of her career, but Saturday she mentioned that her teammates at the time took it as a disappointment. Now she understands why.
“It would mean a lot to a lot of people,” Cambage said of placing with gold. “Knowing we have a whole country tuning it at 5 a.m. cheering us on means the world. I grew up watching Penny Taylor and Lauren Jackson, and it’s been a battle for all these years. Anyone can win on any given day.”
The U.S. defeated Australia 82-70 in the semifinals in Turkey four years ago, and the Opals claimed the bronze medal. They went on to lose to Serbia in the quarterfinals of the Rio Olympics.
“I’m very lucky to be coaching this team,” the Australia coach Brondello said. “Liz and Lauren are even for me, that’s how much they mean to this program. The USA is the favorites, obviously they’re a good team, but we’ll prepare and fight.”
When Australia won this competition in 2006, it avoided the Americans, who lost to Russia in the opposite semifinal. With a dominating presence such as Cambage, whose 27 points per game in this tournament are eight more than the second-best scorer, Anete Steinberga of Latvia, there could be a major upset in the making.
“We need to play the same basketball,” Australia forward Stephanie Talbot said. “We’ve been playing good basketball. Liz is playing awesome. They’ll (the U.S.) be more difficult than any other team we’ve played against. We’ll keep moving the ball inside and outside, and we’ll try to stop them the way we’ve stopped every other team.”