EDMONTON, Canada – This was supposed to be the big night for the race to Rio 2016 for the top teams here for the FIBA America Women’s Olympic qualifier event. One team – One spot.
Thursday evening’s game were supposed to be the best of the best with both Pool A and Pool B finals between Canada and Cuba for A and Brazil and Argentina for B. Throw in the prelim games to get a chance to qualify via the FIBA Olympic qualifier for 12 teams from across the FIBA Zones between Puerto Rico / Chile and Venezuela / Ecuador for the coveted 5th place game where the winner advances to the final spot – one of four after host Brazil (in final four) was automatically qualified.
The last minute acceptance of Brazil as an automatic qualifier by the FIBA Central Board at its Tokyo Meetings just before the start of the FIBA Americas qualifier moved this event from a contest into a chess match. With the USA not here being the Olympic Champion and now Brazil qualified for Rio 2016, the expected battles had to account not just for a win but for placement. No one, especially host Canada want to face the maul of talented four Euro teams in the 12-team Olympic qualifier next year for those non-Zone winners. The Americas got four spots from the remaining five teams since Brazil is technically done. This fact was not overlooked by the fans, experts and Canadian hosts.
Billed as the biggest game in recent years for Canada basketball before a standing room only crowd of 3,000 at the Saville Community Sports Complex the home team did not disappoint jumping on a very strong Cuba team going up 42-19 at halftime. Both teams played for the Gold in 2013 with Cuba the winner. This time is was Canada’s game with a very convincing 92-43 victory.
Canadian point guard Kia Nurse talks about surprisingly quick start against Cuba.
Winning Pool A set up the battle between Brazil and Argentina to see who gets to the semifinals on Saturday evening against Canada. With Brazil already qualified, there was talk of a “help Cuba” game allowing Argentina to get to the semi vs. Cuba so they could face nemesis Canada in the semi. A lot of questions for a Brazilian team missing three stars in Clarissa dos Santos, Damiris Dantas (Lynx) and Erika deSouza (Dream) and only four players from their 2014 FIBA World Championship roster here in Edmonton. Debora Cosa, Patricia Teixeira, Taina Paixao, and Nadia Colhado. A great addition was FIBA Americas u16s Brazil star guard Izabela Nicoletti Leite.
Brazil was disappointing at the start, down 21-12 after the first quarter and then down 38-24 at halftime to a point where I tweeted we’ll know by the end of the 3rd quarter if this was a tanked game or not. Well, it wasn’t as Brazil came roaring back at the end of the 3rd and into the fourth to grab the lead with less than 4 minutes remaining. Argentina smelling a big victory fought back with some three’s and held on for a 73-69 win. This win was so big for Argentina they celebrated as a team and small fan base for 15 minutes on the court after the game. It was a three quarters bad basketball for a great fourth quarter. Where is left was Canada facing Argentina in one semi while qualified Brazil plays Cuba.
The scenarios are now: All the Americas teams in the semifinals (Canada, Cuba, Argentina & 5th place Venezuela) are qualified for some sort of FIBA qualification or direct route (host Brazil and USA) to Rio. Canada which crushed Cuba gets a fired-up Argentina in the Saturday semi at 6pm with Cuba getting a Brazil team which is in regardless of the score. If Brazil comes out poorly as it did against Argentina then it could give Cuba a revenge game setup vs. host Canada in the final on Sunday and automatic spot for Rio. The desire by teams to avoid the FIBA Qualifier next June is huge.
Where does this leave FIBA Americas basketball? The most powerful team in the world is in for Rio, the second best coming out of this Women’s Zone Qualifier skips the gauntlet of playing the powerful Euro teams that didn’t make it to Rio yet. Brazil as one of the top four Americas teams auto qualifies. That means the next three teams may not make it past the FIBA Qualifier next June. It also means a large expenditure of money and funds which most of these Federations hate to spend on women’s basketball. This is just the nature of FIBA-level Federation basketball and women’s basketball (youth and women). For this moment, for these women it is the biggest moment of their lives.
