U17 World Championships for Women Quarters Today

The quarter-finals of the U17 World Championships for Women will be played today with the winners moving on to Friday’s semi-finals. The preliminary games will feature match-ups for 9th-12th place and then Italy will face Spain in the first of the four contests today.

Classification Round
10:00 (GMT +2) Korea – Turkey
12:15 Brazil – Mail
Quarterfinals
14:30 Italy – Spain
Italy and Spain with square off in the first quarter-final match-up at 14:30 (GMT +2). Italy comes into the contest with a 4-1 record in Group A play, finishing second to the US squad. Spain finished third place with a 3-2 record in Group B, following Japan and the Netherlands. In the last three contests between the Italians and Spaniards gives Spain a 2-1 advantage with Spain winning a contest on Aug. 4th, 75-41; Spain won on July 22nd, 70-49 and Italy won on July 12th 67-48. Leticia Romero leads the Spanish scorers with a 14.0 average, while Elisa Penna is pacing Italy averaging 10.6 points per game.

16:45 Japan – Belgium
Top seeded Japan (Group B) matches up against fourth seed (Group A) Belgium in the second quarter-final game. The last time the squads got on the hardwood together on July 7th, 2012, Belgium came out on top with a 93-70 victory. Japan’s only loss in the U17 Worlds has come from Australia, Belgium has lost to the three teams sitting in front of them in the Group A standings US, Canada and Italy. The contest features two of the top three scorers in the tournament in Japan’s Yunika Nakamura (17.0ppg) and Hind Ben Abdelkader of Belgium (16.6ppg).

19:00 Netherlands – Canada
Game three of the U17 World Championship for Women features the second ranked team in Group B, the Netherlands (4-1) and the number three ranked team in Group A, Canada (3-2). The only loss the Dutch have suffered was at the hands of the top team in Group B, Japan. Canada lost their first two contests against Italy and the US, then won their last three against Belgium, Mali and Korea. Canada has a significant size advantage over the Netherlands having seven players over 6’0″, with one 6’5″ and two at 6’4″.

21:15 USA – Australia
The top two teams in the FIBA World Rankings coming into the U17 World Championships for Women faced off in the final quarter-final contest of the day (US #1, Australia #2). The USA finished qualifying play number one in Group A (5-0), with the Aussies seeded fourth in Group B (3-2). The Americans haven’t had a margin of victory less than 19, with their largest margin being a 98-28 contest with Mali. The US has scored an average of 95.6 points per game in the U17 Worlds, compared to 66.0 per game for Australia. Vanessa Panousis has led the Aussie scorers with 10.8 points per game and Louise Brown has been the top rebounder with 8 per game. Diamond DeShields’ 15.8 points per game has been at the top of the American’s scoring chart. Coming into the U17 World Championships for Women the US was ranked number one on the FIBA World Rankings and Australia was ranked number two.