In the early hours of today, Australia defeated France 79-72 in the Olympic women’s basketball group stage, eliminating China’s women’s team from the top eight at the Paris Olympics and bringing their journey in this competition to an end.
After the match, domestic sports media figure @FuZhenghaoMVP posted about the game.
The content of the report is as follows:
Twists of fate led to China’s women’s basketball team ultimately failing to advance from the group stage. The point-differential games were well understood by Australia, Nigeria, and Belgium, who after a chaotic group B battle, all ended up with two wins and one loss, directly advancing together without leaving any room for China’s women’s team. As a result, Belgium, which had previously crushed Japan by 27 points in Group C (with a zero cumulative point differential), narrowly advanced over China (cumulative point differential -1) thanks to a one-point advantage in point differential.
Indeed, we can complain that China’s women’s team was effectively eliminated by European and American teams working together. However, when the Olympic groups were drawn, China’s women’s team was placed in the relatively weaker Group A, which was definitely a favorable draw. In terms of world ranking, China’s women’s team was the strongest in Group A, but they lost disappointingly to Spain and Serbia, essentially relinquishing control of their own destiny. We can only blame ourselves for not managing the details well enough. If we hadn’t made consecutive basic mistakes at critical moments, we wouldn’t have been overturned by Spain, and if we had won more decisively against Puerto Rico to turn our cumulative point differential positive, we might have escaped elimination. Unfortunately, there are no “ifs” in this world.
From fifth place at the Tokyo Olympics to runner-up at the 2022 Women’s Basketball World Cup, China’s increasingly mature women’s team showed a clear upward trend. We thought this group of players had the potential to achieve new glory, with the goal being to secure fourth place and contend for a medal in Paris. However, they failed to even advance from the group stage, which is truly regrettable. Factors such as injuries and team atmosphere may be superficial, but we believe that after some reflection, the Chinese Basketball Association will provide the public with a detailed summary and explanation.