Australia - Opals beat Brazil for second Olympic Games win
The first game was put down to bad nerves, but the second was simply bad. Not bad enough to lose but Australia's women's basketball team looked anything but gold medal material against a clearly inferior opposition in Brazil last night, struggling to a 80-65 victory.
From www.theaustralian.news.com.au
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The first game was put down to bad nerves, but the second was simply bad.
Not bad enough to lose but Australia's women's basketball team looked anything but gold medal material against a clearly inferior opposition in Brazil last night, struggling to a 80-65 victory.
After leading by 21 at half-time, the Opals fell in a big hole with a 20-7 Brazilian run reducing the margin to eight points late in the third quarter.
A lot of that was because superstar Lauren Jackson was sitting on the bench with four fouls and just six points.
The final term wasn't much better, with Brazil hanging in there to raise serious question marks about the reigning world champions' form after they were also up and down in the opening game of the Olympic tournament against Belarus.
The main problem last night was the foul trouble Jackson and centre Suzy Batkovic found themselves in, which exposed the Opals bench against Brazil's giant Kelly Santos who led all scorers with 21 points.
Laura Summerton was again impressive leading the Australian scoring with 18 points while veteran guard Kristi Harrower hit some big three-pointers to finish with 15.
In stark contrast the Opals challenger for the gold medal, the USA, looked sensational in the night's earlier game thrashing China 108-63.