The Opals’ Tokyo Olympic campaign is over after they were outclassed by the USA, 79-55, on Wednesday.
In a quarter-final showdown between world
Australia’s Sandy Brondello, coaching in her first Olympics after representing her country in 4 as a player, said the defeat was a tough end to the tournament.
“We’re obviously disappointed with the result. We faced a very focused and aggressive USA team today and found it really hard to score or be able to execute the way we wanted to,’’ she said.
“I’m really proud of these girls and I keep saying it’s been a really interesting few weeks that we’ve had to deal with, losing a big part of our team and trying to find out identity and with limited preparation it was hard to find that having played 2 games together in 18 months."
“That’s the Covid world we lived in, especially coming from Australia, and now we’ve got to learn from this and be better prepared heading into the World Cup in Sydney next year.”
Point guard Leilani Mitchell (16 points (shooting 40 per cent from the 3), 6 assists, 3 rebounds) and the consistent Cayla George (11 points, 7 rebounds) were Australia’s best performed players.
For the USA, Brianna Stewart (23 points (8-10 from the field), 5 rebounds, 3 assists) produced her best Olympic performance, Brittney Griner (15 points, 8 rebounds) was huge and Chelsea Gray (8 assists, 7 points) packed a punch of the bench.
Marianna Tolo summed up the feeling amongst the team "A tough game, it hurts because we have such a great group of girls, it makes it really hard to deal with."
The Opals next major tournament is September 2022 when Australia hosts the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup.
USA 79 (Stewart 23 points, Griner 15, Wilson 10) defeated Australia 55 (Mitchell 14, George 11)
The Last Word
with Carrie Graf
Opals coach, 2012 London Olympics (bronze medal)
“Against the US you’ve got to put your best foot forward for every moment of the game and keep scoreboard pressure on and we lost it in that mid patch of the first quarter. We turned the ball over three or four times consecutively, they went on a run, got 10 up and once the momentum swung, I think that was the game there.
We made some good runs and chipped away at it but a classy team like the US, the depth of their talent and experience, you can’t get behind by big margins against them because wins don’t come often against the US, especially in Olympic tournaments.”
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