Team Canada moves on to the semi-final round at the FIBA Americas U16 Championships for Women by going undefeated (3-0) in round robin play. Canada beat Brazil 68-56, Guatemala 97-22 and Mexico 68-46. By finishing first the Canucks avoid the American team that won all their round robin games by 60 or more points.
Although it’s been difficult to follow the scores on the FIBA site, it appears Vanessa Pickard is getting good minutes, however, her shooting has cooled off since the first game. In the last game against Mexico Vanessa played 15 minutes while shooting 1-5 from 2 pt range. Considering she had 3 fouls and it was a lopsided with for her team, it’s probably safe to assume her minutes were inconsistent which probably hurt her rhythm.
If the women’s coaches follow the same pattern as the U16 men’s coaches did last month, they’ll be shortening their rotations in the medal rounds. If that’s the case, after tonight’s game we’ll not only know where Canada stands (Argentina lost by 60+ to USA) but we’ll also know where Vanessa is in the national depth chart.
The semi-final schedule for today (Aug 13, 2009) is as follows…
18:00 pm USA vs. Brazil
20:00 pm Canada vs. Argentina
* All times are Central