Game Report, Russia vs Cuba 96-81, Eight-Finals

BARUERI (2006 FIBA World Championship for Women) - Russia have not been at their best in Brazil but Cuba coach Armando Acosta is a big admirer after watching the European giants knock his team out of medal contention on Monday.

Russia always had the measure of their opponents and from the tip-off looked stronger in every area as Ilona Korstin scored a team-high 26 points for the victors.

"Russia is an amazing team," Acosta said.

"Statistics show that this was their best game. We couldn't neutralize their forward players and they controlled the game, especially with three-point shots."

Korstin made all three of her three-pointers and pulled down 14 rebounds in the stand-out performance of the night by some distance.

Oxana Rahmatulina, with 13 points, was next best for Russia in the scoring charts.

The Russians had eked out a two-point advantage (23-21) by the end of the first quarter and did not look back from there. 

The serious damage was done to Cuba's chances of victory in the second quarter, when they were outscored two-to-one (22-11) by the rampaging Russians to trail 45-32 at half-time.

"We were really disappointed after our games against France and the Czech Republic," Korstin said.

France defeated Russia 74-64 and then the Czech Republic, who beat Korstin & Co in the final of last year's EuroBasket Women, edged them 85-83.

Both setbacks were in the eight-finals and left the Russians needing to win to advance to the quarter-finals.

"We believe we have to play at one certain level and I think we have a better group than those two teams, but we lost," Korstin said.

"So we really had to win today to be in the next round."

Cuba got 18 points and eight rebounds from Yakelyn Plutin, while Yayma Boulet poured in 17 and finished with nine boards.

Russia now face Spain in a quarter-final while Cuba must battle in the classification games.

18.09.2006 Boxscores

Lithuania vs Spain: 55-75
Canada vs Brazil: 41-82
Cuba vs Russia: 81-96
Australia vs Argentina: 83-49
France vs China: 64-66
Czech Republic vs USA: 50-63

By PA Sport