LILLE (France) - LILLE (France) - Australia are celebrating making the Quarter-Finals of the Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament Paris 2024 after spoiling the home party for a full house in Lille with a 79-72 success against France.
The result means that Australia wrapped up second place, with France just about doing enough, even in defeat to cling on to first spot. But France will not be in the top two teams in the tournament, leaving that honor to USA and Spain.
In turn, the result pushed Nigeria into third place, with all three teams finishing 2-1, while also eliminating China from Quarter-Finals contention.
Turning point
Up by 11 points early in the last quarter, Australia felt the heat as France got to within 1 at 65-64. But to their credit, the Opals scored the next 7 points and that was critical as it staved off any nerves and halted the French momentum.
Game heroes
Tess Madgen played her best game at the tournament and was hugely influential for her team.
She led by example and harvested 18 points, while backcourt partner Sami Whitcomb continued her good form with an all-action 12 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds.
Stats don't lie
Only Gabby Williams made it to double-digits with 15 points and that was a very telling factor in France not winning the contest.
Australia 'only' had 17 turnovers, which is hardly amazing, but the way they have thrown the ball away in the competition, that was just about good enough against the French ball pressure.
Bottom Line
Australia had been subjected to some criticisms, but they answered the questions in the best possible way by following up their win against Canada with this success against France. Head coach Sandy Brondello turned mainly to her veterans and their experience and know-how go it done.
France were pedestrian for long periods, coming to life in flashes and looking again like the team tipped to maybe make a run to the title game. But that lack of consistency on offense and too many switch offs defensively cost them. Now their route to any potential desired Final on home soil could feel more complicated.
They said
"It's moments like this when we have our backs to the wall when we have to fight our way through that we get it done. We showed that at the last Olympics. We have to have this mentality in every game. Opals' center Marianna Tolo.
"I am happy we had this one tonight actually, because there were a lot of mistakes that we have been making but hadn't been punished for. This Australia team is really smart. I hope we can go back to the drawing board and it can help us going forward. There is never going to be an easy route. No matter what we have to beat anyone to get the results we want [in the tournament]." France forward, Gabby Williams
Quick notes
- Australia remains undefeated against a host team in the 21st century, winning each of the five games they played against a host nation in that span. - Australia dished out 22 assists in today’s game – they have made 20+ assists in each of their three games at the Olympics 2024, something only the USA and Belgium have also done this year. - Sami Whitcomb finished this game with 12 points, seven assists and five rebounds – this is her second consecutive game with 10/5/5 and is only the second Australian player with multiple such games in a single Olympic tournament, as Penny Taylor also did it in two games in 2016. - Tess Magden scored 18 points in today’s game after scoring a total of 14 points in her six previous appearances at the Olympics combined; since the start of the 2016 tournament, only one Australian player off the bench has scored more points in a single game at the Olympics (Marianna Tolo, 26pts v Puerto Rico in 2021). - Gabby Williams scored 15 points against Australia and is now the only French player to have scored in double-figures in each of their three games at the Olympics 2024.
FIBA