Wouldn’t a USA-Japan final at the U17 Worlds Women be great?

REGENSBURG (David Hein’s Eye on the Future) – Coming to Amsterdam for the 2012 FIBA U17 World Championship for Women, it was pretty clear who the top stars would be. But one surprise was awaiting: that Japan would be legitimate medal contenders – and making the thought of a United States-Japan final pretty enticing.

The USA remain the clear-cut favorites to win the title in the Netherlands, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they repeated their undefeated run to the gold from two summers ago at the inaugural U17 World Championship for Women. In fact, it would be a minor shock if anyone beats the Americans.

There are two players who really stand out for the Americans in Rebecca Greenwell and tournament MVP frontrunner Diamond DeShields.

Greenwell is a feel-good story after she came back strong from a torn ACL injury suffered last summer. The 2011 FIBA Americas U16 gold medalist and co-MVP has come back as a strong defender but mainly a great shooter and an extremely efficient player in the USA offense.

DeShields is the closest thing this tournament has to an über-star. The small forward’s athleticism gives the Americans a dynamic that no team can match – and one that none can stop either. And she’s showing the world exactly why she played the previous two summers with age groups three years older.

But it’s no surprise that Team USA is dominating teams – winning by more than 40 points per game as the highest scoring team and the team to allow the fewest per game.

Surprising has been the Japanese team, which powered their way to first place in Group B despite it having three European teams – including 2011 European U16 champions Spain and the hosts Netherlands – as well as traditionally strong Australia and always-talented Brazil.

Japan have an impressive group of interchangeable guards playing pesky but hard-nosed defense and shooting well from outside – led by Ai Yamada and Saori Miyazaki. And then there is the impressive low post duo of Yunika Nakamura and Evelyn Mawuli, both of whom are amazingly effective despite being undersized at 1.77m and 1.8cm, respectively.

One may look at the results and wonder how Australia could have blown out the Japanese by 34 points in the final group game. That’s because Japan had already booked the group victory before the game and head coach Shinichiro Hayashi pulled his starters after five minutes and a 15-0 lead.

With the USA and Japan both topping their groups, the earliest they could meet is Sunday's Final. And it would be great to see the two systems and styles clash.

While it would be a shock to see Japan knock off the USA, it would be a fascinating Final full of intrigue and suspense with a clash of systems and styles.

Here some other observers from Amsterdam…
- Belgian guard Hind Ben Abdelkader came into the tournament as one of the biggest prospects in Europe. But after averaging 27 points in her first two games against Mali and Korea and shooting 51 per cent from the field, Ben Abdelkader was shut down against Canada, the USA and Italy. She averaged just 9.7 points on an abysmal 7-of-58 shooting (12 per cent) including just 2-of-32 (6 per cent) from inside the three-point line. If Ben Abdelkader does not get out of her woes she had best work on finding other open players or Belgium could see their three-game losing streak continue.
- The Dutch are on a three-game winning streak heading into Friday's Quarter-Finals and have shown that they have made huge strides in women’s basketball. One of the keys to the push forward has been the CTO program that the Netherlands Basketball Federation and National Olympic Committee created for women’s basketball three years ago. A number of players from the program – which has players between the ages of 15 and 21 practice twice a day – have already brought the Dutch to higher ground in Amsterdam. They include Laura Cornelius, Esther Fokke, Emese Hof, Isabella Slim and Britt Zappeij. But now the Dutch must be careful. Having this kind of success – the U18 team also qualified for the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship for Women and the U20 team is into Quarter-Finals of the 2012 European Championship – the organizers cannot rest on their laurels but continue to work hard.

David Hein

FIBA

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