10 August 2012
Post-Game Articles
Team USA finally wears down Australia, advances to gold medal game: "There’s always a game within the game – and even though Australia would extend a 32-28 second quarter lead to as many as seven before the break, the tide had already turned with 6:11 to go in the second quarter. The reason? Liz Cambage was exhausted. Up to that point, Cambage had scored 13 points and dominated the game, but she was also completely out of gas. She leaned over at the free-throw line, hands on her knees, and had to come out of the game."
London 2012: Will semis loss to the U.S. be the end of an era for Australian women's basketball?: "Nor was [Australian guard Kristi Harrower] regretting her team's failure to game the system by losing their final preliminary round game, as Russia has all but confessed to doing, in an effort to avoid meeting the U.S. before the final. No, that would have been 'un-Australian,' as Harrower, team captain Lauren Jackson and Opals' coach Carrie Graf each independently described it when the question was put to them."
USA Women's Basketball Vs. Australia: Tina Charles, Asjha Jones & The Five Minutes That Changed The Game: "While Minnesota Lynx teammates Augustus, Moore, and Whalen have already drawn praise for bringing their WNBA championship-caliber chemistry to London, the defensive play of Charles and Jones - that has helped the Connecticut Sun establish themselves as the top defensive team in the Eastern Conference in the first half of the 2012 WNBA season - was just as significant in shifting momentum in favor of the U.S."
And from the USA Basketball site, Coach Auriemma's best quote:
On the decision to move to a two-three zone in the second-half:
I would love to say that it was really strategic on my part, but it was more out of desperation. We couldn’t guard her – there was nothing we could do. We had a couple of our bigs in foul trouble, and their two bigs were just killing us. So, we had played it a little bit this tournament and we were actually pretty bad for not having spent a lot of time on it. That and making a couple shots on the other end proved to be the difference.
London 2012: Will semis loss to the U.S. be the end of an era for Australian women's basketball?: "Nor was [Australian guard Kristi Harrower] regretting her team's failure to game the system by losing their final preliminary round game, as Russia has all but confessed to doing, in an effort to avoid meeting the U.S. before the final. No, that would have been 'un-Australian,' as Harrower, team captain Lauren Jackson and Opals' coach Carrie Graf each independently described it when the question was put to them."
USA Women's Basketball Vs. Australia: Tina Charles, Asjha Jones & The Five Minutes That Changed The Game: "While Minnesota Lynx teammates Augustus, Moore, and Whalen have already drawn praise for bringing their WNBA championship-caliber chemistry to London, the defensive play of Charles and Jones - that has helped the Connecticut Sun establish themselves as the top defensive team in the Eastern Conference in the first half of the 2012 WNBA season - was just as significant in shifting momentum in favor of the U.S."
And from the USA Basketball site, Coach Auriemma's best quote:
On the decision to move to a two-three zone in the second-half:
I would love to say that it was really strategic on my part, but it was more out of desperation. We couldn’t guard her – there was nothing we could do. We had a couple of our bigs in foul trouble, and their two bigs were just killing us. So, we had played it a little bit this tournament and we were actually pretty bad for not having spent a lot of time on it. That and making a couple shots on the other end proved to be the difference.
Labels: Olympics
# posted by mamurd @ 10:21 PM 
