LILLE (France) - China belatedly got rolling at the Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament Paris 2024 as they claimed their first win of the competition by taking down Puerto Rico 80-58 in their last Group A game.
China wrapped up third place, but must now wait to see if they will make it to Paris for the next phase of the competition or also head home with Puerto Rico, who are left still searching for an elusive first ever Olympic victory.
Turning point
Puerto Rico were still hanging around in the third period and it was just an 11-point game but China scored 8 of the next 9 points to put juge daylight between both teams.
During the same period, Mya Hollingshed picked up a fourth foul and had to take a seat on the bench.
Game hero
Meng Li has been turning up the volume at this tournament and it's a trend that continued as the winger registered 18 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds.
Stats don't lie
China chose to let it fly from long-range and sunk no fewer than 11 triples in the game which helped them break the contest open.
Bottom line
China might just be able to revive their fortunes if they manage to sneak into the Quarter-Finals. Certainly the margin of victory could be the difference maker in sending them through. It was a much improved performance and while they still don't look quite like the podium contenders most people expected, they have the players and roster to change that.
Puerto Rico now leave French soil with heads held high. They might be 0-3 as they were on their debut at Tokyo 2020, but they could and maybe should have made history. Instead they had to suffer two heart-breakers against Serbia and Spain. Poor shooting percentages really did hurt them - a lot.
They said
"This was a big improvement for us and for me personally, the mentality change we had was a big help. For the other games we lost we were well prepared but not mentally. Today it was win or go home and we didn't have a choice." China center Yueru Li
"They are just too big for us. They have inside and outside and were good in their shot selections with what they took. We tried, but we were not in our flow on offense because of them. I think we did a great job in the first two games when we were on point with our defense. Stil, I am super proud of what we did." Puerto Rico head coach, Gerardo Batista
"The shots just didn't fall for us in this tournament. Even with the worst possible shooting percentages that we probably ever had, we are still in the game with these teams. It's really not easy to process right now for us." Puerto Rico guard, Arella Guirantes
Quick note
- China have scored 80+ points for the second time in this 2024 Olympic tournament (also 89-90 v Spain), as often as in their previous 13 games in the competition; five of their last seven wins ended with margins of 20+ points.
- Puerto Rico have won none of their six games at the Olympics (L3 in both 2021 and 2024) and are now one of the two teams, alongside Senegal (L6 in 2000 and L5 in 2016), to have taken part in multiple Olympic tournaments without ever winning a single game. - Meng Li (18pts, 5reb, 7ast) has become the 5th different Chinese player to register a 15/5/5 at the Olympics, after Xiaobo Song (1 in 1984), Lijie Miao (2 times, in 2008 and 2012), Yueru Li (1 in 2021, also against Puerto Rico) and Ting Shao (1 in 2021). - Sijing Huang scored 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds today, both her best tallies in her 12 games at the Olympics; she has made multiple 3-pointers in each of her three games in 2024 after never doing it in any of her previous nine appearances. - With 20 points today and 15 points on gameday 2 against Spain, Arella Guirantes has become the second Puerto Rican player to score 15+ points in consecutive games at the Olympics, after Jazmon Gwathmey in 2021 (2 in a row); she made 7 free-throws today, the most for a player with Puerto Rico in the competition.
FIBA