MIES (Switzerland) - Countries taking part in the FIBA U17 Women's Basketball World Cup 2020 will know the early hurdles they'll have to clear when the draw for the tournament takes place today.

The FIBA U17 Women's Basketball World Cup 2020 is to be staged in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, from August 15 to August 23, with the draw ceremony taking place today, Wednesday, March 4, at 12:00 local time (11:00 Geneva time).

Following the cancellation of the FIBA U16 Women's Asian Championship 2019, the qualification of the Asia/Oceania teams to the FIBA U17 Women's Basketball World Cup 2020 is based on the FIBA World Rankings Youth Women, presented by Nike. The four best teams are  Australia (#7), China (#10), Japan (#11) and Korea (#18). 

The 16 teams taking part, according to the draw principles, are in four pots. Based on the results from the U16 Continental Championships 2019, qualifying  for this event, the seedings are as follows: 

Pot 1: USA, Canada, Russia and Romania

Pot 2: Lithuania, Spain, France and Italy

Pot 3: Australia, China, Japan and Korea

Pot 4: Chile, Puerto Rico, Mali and Egypt

The draw will be live-streamed on FIBA's YouTube channel.  

The USA has won four of the five past FIBA U17 Women's Basketball World Cups, also dating back to 2010, with Australia reaching the top in 2016.

FIBA