A report from Candice

Candice tells us a bit about her experiences in  China and what it's like being a  Team USA rookie in this WNBA blog.

USA team tours Beiing "must see" spots

Members of the USA team took some time after the Good Luck Beijing Tournament to tour the Great Wall and Tian'anmen Square. Here is the complete photo gallery.

Two close losses

USA Basketball and New Zealand both lost their final game in the Good Luck Beijing Tournament by just three points.

New Zealand led most of the game, but succumbed to Korea's 3-point shooting in the third quarter for a final score of 67-70. Jillian led all scorers with 20 points, and had six rebounds. Here is the game report and the box score.

Although the Tall Ferns  won only one game in the tournament, coach McHugh was impressed with what they accomplished. He feels that the experience was of tremendous benefit to them in their preparations for the Olympics in August.

Both Clare and Jillian made valuable  contributions throughout the week.  

Clare started all five games and played an average of 19 minutes per game.  She averaged 5.7 points per game and  led the team in 3-point percentage (50).

Jilllian  played an average of  25 minutes per game.  She was the team's second-best scorer (11.7 points per game) and rebounder (6.3 per game).

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China was determined to win the gold medal and defeated the USA 84-81. Quotes from the USA tell the story:

Anne Donovan:  "They played a tremendous game  ... really attacked us."
Katie Smith: "They were really aggressive."
Lisa Leslie: "They were all over us in the post."

Here is the game report and box score.

In spite of the unexpected defeat by China, the USA is still favored to win its fifth gold medal in the upcoming Olympic Games. The loss, as Lisa Leslie said, "... is enough motivation to drive me to be even better for the Olympics and be totally focused ... It's a reality check."

The primary strength of this USA squad was their post play -- Sylvia Fowles averaged the team-high 17 points and  10.5 rebounds per game; Lisa Leslie averaged 14.7 points and 7.8 rebounds per game . 

Candice played a fairly modest role in the mostly very experienced group of players. Although her statistics are not impressive, she contributed a lot to the team effort. She played an average of 21 minutes per game, scored 5.3 points per game, and led the team in steals (7).

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On Saturday afternoon, between the bronze and gold medal games, FIBA  conducted the draw for the Olympic men's and women's basketball competition.  The USA and New Zealand women will play each other again in Beijing on August 17th. Here is a full report  and a video of the draw ceremony.

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Here is a summary report of the entire tournament from Beijing.

Opals lose their lustre

Here's another article about New Zealand's historic defeat of Australia yesterday in the Good Luck Beijing Tournament.

Remember how exciting it was when the Cardinal defeated Tennessee last December for the first time in eleven years?  The Kiwi's defeat of the Opals was the first time in thirty (30) years! How thrilling for Jillian and Clare to be part of this momentous event!

USA defeats China

USA's powerful post play, primarily from Lisa and Sylvia,  overwhelmed China who lost today  86-61. 

Candice contributed two points and one steal  to the victory.

Here is the game report from USA Basketball and the box score.

This completes the preliminary rounds of the Good Luck Beijing Tournament. The USA and China have each won four and lost one. They will meet again on Saturday in the Gold Medal game.

Go Ferns!

The New Zealand Tall Ferns defeated Australia 63-59 in the last preliminary game of the Good Luck Beijing Tournament!

The Kiwi's historic victory over their rivals in sport, but their allies in battle, happened on ANZAC Day:

The term ANZAC originated as an acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, an army corps of Australian and New Zealand troops who fought against the Turks in 1915 at the Battle of Gallipoli during World War I. Within Australasia, ANZAC came to stand not just for the troops in World War I, but for Australian and New Zealand soldiers in time of war more generally. Anzac Day is observed annually in memory of those soldiers who died in war. It is commemorated each year by both countries on April 25, the date of the first landing at Gallipoli in 1915 on a beach known as ANZAC Cove. (Thanks, Wikipedia)

Coach McHugh observed, "... we just hung in there through pure guts and determination." 

Sounds like Jillian, doesn't it?   Jillian led the Tall Ferns to their first-ever victory over Australia. She had a double-double: the team-high 15 points and 11 rebounds.

Here is a the game report from the Tall Ferns and the box score.

New Zealand will play Korea on Saturday in the 5th/6th place playoff match of the tournament. <

Good Luck Beijing, Day 5

Although the USA cut down the Tall Ferns 78-60, coach Mike McHugh was delighted with the Kiwi's performance against their much bigger and more athletic rivals.

The Kiwi's were outrebounded 55-35, but outscored the USA by eight points in the second half.  Anne Donovan  admired their just not quitting  and said, "They certainly made it an interesting game there at the end."

Candice contributed seven points for the USA, including two free throws.  She is not drawing fouls  driving to the basket like she did as a Cardinal (these were her first in the tournament).  I wonder if Jillian is the one who committed the fouls.

Here is more information:

• Game report from Tall Ferns 
• Game report from USA Basketball
• Box score

JIllian's Dream

Here's a great story from the Oregonian  about the chain of events that led Jillian to the fulfillment of her  childhood dream of playing in the Olympics.

(Here is a refreshingly candid report of yesterday's loss to China from the Tall Ferns website.)

Good Luck Beijing, Day 3

Anne Donovan was really pleased with USA Basketball's defensive effort against South Korea. I guess! They won 92-56 against a team that averages almost 80 points a game.

Candice shot 62.5% for eleven points. She added eight rebounds, two assists and a steal.

Here is the link to the game report from USA Basketball, which includes links to the box score, postgame quotes and a photo gallery.

New Zealand had a disappointing third loss (99-73) against China.  There is no report of the game from New Zealand, but here  is a brief report and the box score from the Good Luck Beijing website.

USA and New Zealand play each other on Wednesday after a day of rest. When asked what it will be like playing against Jillian, Candice replied, "No, there hasn't been any [trash] talking, but it's going to be weird. I've never played against Jill ... I think they're really excited, they've been playing really well so it should be fun."

Good Luck Beijing, Day 2

As they had anticipated after yesterday's loss, USA Basketball played better and won over Cuba 92-60. Sylvia Fowles had a monster game: 25 points, 18 rebounds and six blocked shots.  Candice contributed  seven points, five assists and three rebounds. Katie Smith said of Candice, "[She] got a couple looks, got a couple shots to go down to get her confidence going."

Here is the game report from USA Basketball, with links to the box score and postgame quotes.

New Zealand played a high-scoring game against Korea, but lost 78-90. Jillian shot an impressive 57% and scored 18 points, as well as seven rebounds and four assists! Coach McHugh said,  "Harmon had a super game for us tonight and will be a real asset to this team."

Here is the game report from the Tall Ferns, with a link to the box score.

The Good Luck Beijing website has statistics and photo galleries (as of this blog posting, there are no galleries yet for the Day 2 games, but there should be later today).

Hard Luck Beijing

Day 1 of the Good Luck Beijing Tournament didn't go well for either of "our" teams.

USA lost to Australia 60-74. Coach Anne Donovan was of course disappointed with the result, but thought the team did a nice job after four days of practice. They know that they are going to continue to improve and play better throughout the tournament.

The game was even until the last nine minutes. Then Australia went on a 13-3 run, and the USA never caught up.

The USA struggled with its outside shooting, to say the least. They made just 2-0f-19 from beyond the arc. Candice played 26 minutes and was 0-8 on 3-pointers.

Here is the full game report from USA Basketball. It includes a link to the box score.

New Zealand's loss to Cuba 71-75 was perhaps even more disappointing. New Zealand have come close to beating Cuba (ranked eighth in the world) several times over the past three years. They were ahead after three quarters, but couldn't hold them off down the stretch.

Clare started, played 18 minutes, scored seven points and had three steals. Jillian came off the bench, played 23 minutes, scored six points and had two rebounds. Here is the game report from the Tall Ferns and the box score from Beijing.

There is additional information on the Tournament website:

• The home page has a game report and quotes from each of the day's games.
• The results page has cumulative statistics for each team, which will be interesting as the tournament progresses. Star List apparently will have individual player statistics. The box score for each game is linked to from the game result.
• The gallery page has a gallery of photos from each of the day's games. There's another photo of Jillian here.
• The video page includes a video of the NZ/Cuba postgame interview. Each participant speaks in their own language, but about all you can hear is the Chinese translation. The videos do not play on a Mac.

Good Luck Beijing schedule

Good Luck Beijing, the international invitational tournament, starts tomorrow (April 19). For those in the Pacific Time zone, it actually starts very late tonight.

This is the schedule (PDT) of the preliminary round games for our Cardinal Olympians:

4/18, 11:30 pm, NZ vs Cuba
4/19, 1:45 am, USA vs Australia
4/19, 11:30 pm, USA vs Cuba
4/20 1:45 am, NZ vs Korea
4/20, 11:30 pm, USA vs Korea
4/21, 5:00 am, NZ vs China
4/23, 7:15 am, NZ vs USA
4/24, 5:00 am, USA vs China
4/24, 7:15 am, NZ vs Australia 

This is the complete schedule from the tournament website.

The USA vs Cuba and USA vs China games will be televised live by NBA TV. I haven't found any Gametracker coverage of the games -- we'll just have to wait for the results of the other games to be published.

Jillian is a warrior

The Tall Ferns were encouraged by their narrow loss to China in a friendly game before the Good Luck Beijing tournament. It was one of their best international performances in four years.

Jillian was a "warrior" in her international debut. She played 22 minutes and grabbed the team-high seven rebounds. Clare contributed five points, two assists and three steals.

Here are the full story and the box score.

Jillian and Clare have settled in well

Tall Ferns captain Aneka Kerr reports that Jillian and Clare have settled in really well.

The centimetre-disadvantaged centre (she's 5'-11.7" tall) should really welcome Jillian's defensive skills.

Photos from USA Basketball training in Chicago

This is Candice in her USA Basketball uniform. It's from a SportsPage Magazine photo gallery of the team training in Chicago. If you look through the photos carefully, you can catch a few more glimpses of Candice.

New Zealand vs USA

The Good Luck Beijing Tournament is an international invitational tournament which will be held April 19-26 in Beijing. The New Zealand vs USA game is scheduled for April 23. Here is the full schedule.

To convert the times shown in that schedule to Pacific Daylight time, subtract 15 hours. For example, the NZ/USA game is at 22:15 in Beijing, which is 7:15 a.m. PDT.

Candice is training for Olympic test event

Candice is one of the USA Basketball Women’s National Team members members who is training in Chicago for the Good Luck Beijing Tournament. Read more...

Clare & Jillian Are Tall Ferns

The Tall Ferns is the New Zealand national women's basketball team. Clare and Jillian have been selected to the squad that will play in the Good Luck Beijing Tournament.

Clare was named to the squad after attending a Tall Ferns training camp last week and playing in two games against the Australian Opals. She scored two of two three-pointers in the second game. Here is an article about Clare and her New Zealand connections.

Since Jillian was busy in Tampa, she was signed to the squad sight unseen based on her performances for Stanford. She joined the Tall Ferns in China this weekend. Here are two articles about Jillian from the Tall Ferns website, written just before the NCAA championship game: Twice as Nice and Calm Before the Storm.