BENGALURU (FIBA U16 Women’s Asian Cup 2017) – Australia has selected the 12-players set to take on the best teams from Asia and Oceania. The FIBA U16 Women’s Asia Cup 2017 squad was named following a selection camp at the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Canberra, Australia.

The U16 Women’s team known as the Sapphires will be heading to Bengaluru, India from October 22-28 at the same stadium where the Opals took home the silver in the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup 2017 earlier this year.

Australia will take on China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong and Thailand with the top four teams then advancing to the Semi-Finals.

The top four teams from the FIBA U16 Women’s Asian Championship 2017 will then qualify for the FIBA U17 Women’s World Basketball Cup 2018 where the Sapphires will be aiming to defend their title from FIBA U17 Women's World Championship 2016.

Someone who is very familiar with the Championship performance of 2016 is Sapphires Head Coach Shannon Seebohm who was the Head Coach when Australia won the title.

“The three-day selection camp at the CoE was a great chance to see the squad together for the first time,” said Seebohm.

“We had five on-court practice sessions as well as an internal scrimmage and got to put in the framework for our style of play we are going to build on moving through the qualifiers.”

With many junior Australian debutants, one name should stand out, that name is Shyla Heal.

Daughter of former Australian Olympian Shane Heal, Shyla has already gained a taste of FIBA competition during her Championship game MVP performance at the FIBA U17 Oceania Championships 2017 in Guam this July. She will surely be someone that Seebohm uses heavily as Australia make their run at towards Belarus.

FIBA