MELBOURNE (Paulo Kennedy’s View from Downunder) - Women's basketball fans are in for a treat over the next few days with the Opals making their debut in Asia and the U19 Gems trying to replicate the golden world championship exploits of our U17s last year.

The USA have won every FIBA Women's Basketball U19 World Cup since 2005 and will go in heavy favourites, but our Sapphires knocked the Americans off their U17 perch last year with a 73-60 Semi-Final win.

Eight of that amazing team - which won the gold medal game by 24 points - are in Italy trying to do the double, giving them tremendous consistency to hit the tournament running on Saturday night (9.30pm Australian time) against Japan.

In contrast, only one member of the US team returns, shooting guard Crystal Williams, who sizzled early in last year's U17 tournament in Spain before shooting 1-of-10 from range in the medal rounds and landing just 1-of-9 overall against the Aussies.

Miserly
Of course, history in underage tournaments tells us the USA have few problems gelling on the run and they build their dominance around defence that generates open-court scores to lessen the dependence on familiarity in the half-court.

In their past two U19 triumphs, the USA have kept opponents to under 55 points per game, including holding the Gems to 54 points in the 2013 Semi-Final and then locking France down to a remarkable 28 points in the final.

Jazmin Shelley was the superhero when the Sapphires scored 73 points against the Americans last year - the second-highest tally the US have allowed in the past four underage women's tournaments - with 20 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the arc, 8 rebounds and 5 assists.

Even spread
The good news for the Australians is they had many heroes throughout last year's tournament, such as Ezi Magbegor, Monique Conti and Jasmine Simmons, who was a rebounding fiend with 33 caroms in the knockout rounds.

Unfortunately, Simmons isn't in Italy, and there are many little things she contributed to the team last year that were so important. Fortunately, Anneli Maley comes in having averaged an incredible 11.3 rebounds per game at the 2014 U17 tournament, including 47 in the opening three games.

Indeed, three of the players coming into this year's team played in the Czech Republic three years ago, helping the Sapphires go undefeated before failing to the host nation in the Quarter-Finals.

Maley ranked fifth in scoring and first in boards in that team, while Chloe Bibby was third in points and fourth on the glass. This is a team with plenty of experience performing on the global stage. Let's hope the cards can fall their way again.

The Gems face Japan, Mexico and Hungary in the Group Phase, with the Hungarians expected to provide the sternest test before the Final Phase begin.

New-look Opals
The Opals face Korea in their tournament opener when the FIBA Women's Asia Cup tips off on Sunday - live on Fox Sports in Australia at 3.30pm AEST in a great win for women's hoops fans.

While Korea won't be at their strongest, the all-around genius of Kim DanBi and the size of 1.95m centre Park JiSu should provide some tests for the Aussies.

The Opals were expected to be able to dominate the Asian game with their frontcourt size, but with the likes of Liz Cambage and Suzy Batkovic unavailable and Alex Bunton and Abby Bishop suffering injuries in the lead-up, that frontcourt isn’t quite as imposing.



Marianna Tolo should be an absolute physical force in this tournament, but aside from her it will be a case of mobility in the four and five spots, with the likes of Kelsey Griffin, Sara Blicavs, Laura Hodges and Alice Kunek forming a different kind of frontcourt.

Perhaps in this tournament that will work well, with that trio able to match-up physically with most Asian power forwards and back-ups centres (not to mention many starting centres) while being able to exploit those match-ups with their versatility at the other end.

On guard
The first real test is expected to come on Tuesday at 5.45pm when our girls meet two-time defending champions Japan, who are returning just four players from their 2015 team and will be missing star big Ramu Tokashiki and their driving force on the wing, Sanae Motokawa.

However, that quartet does include highly impressive playmakers Asami Yoshida and Rui Machida, who are both a handful to contain and genuine keys to Japan’s ability to create open looks.

Japan's guards will certainly give us a good read on the Opals' inexperienced backcourt - with the obvious exception of veteran Belinda Snell - and I really look forward to seeing how Tessa Lavey can handle them defensively, and how ever-calm debutante Lauren Mansfield can handle their pressure.

There's not a lot of time for the new-look team to gel, with the Quarter-Finals arriving after just three games and that knockout match-up deciding whether Australia qualifies for the FIBA Women's World Cup 2018.

While the Round of Eight game won't likely present too many issues, the medal round will see some decent opposition, and that will give great insight into how well a team still learning a new style of play can handle tournament pressure.

The Semi-Finals will be played next Friday night, while the medals will be decided on Saturday.

Paulo Kennedy

FIBA

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