CZE/NZL – Tall Ferns suffer heavy defeat to Czechs

BEIJING (Olympics) – The Czech Republic have been far from their best at the Beijing Games but they proved far too good for the New Zealand Tall Ferns in a Group B game on Friday that has effectively ended Kiwi hopes of another appearance in the quarter-finals.

Gambrinus Brno duo Hana Machova poured in 23 points and Eva Viteckova 21 to lead the Czechs to a 90-59 victory.

Jan Bobrovsky’s team took command of proceedings with a 10-2 run midway through the first quarter that was capped by a Machova three-pointer for a 16-8 lead.

A basket from Iva Vecerova (14pts, eight rebounds) and two Viteckova free throws left the Czechs, who had to go through the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament to reach China, on top at 26-12.

The Tall Ferns managed to stay within striking distance with Jillian Harmon splitting a pair of free throws to cut the Czech lead to 48-36 with 5:06 left in the third quarter, but Bobrovsky’s team then outscored them 17-2 to take a 65-38 stranglehold on the game with 10 minutes remaining.

The Kiwis ended up losing by 31 points.

“I think our preparation was as good as can be, and we picked the best team,” said New Zealand coach Mike McHugh, an assistant on the team that reached the last eight of the Athens Games.

“Our lack of experience shows. We only had two players from Athens. We have a young team with an average age of 22. Their players had a pretty special game considering the way they’ve played in this tournament.”

The Czechs’ only victory in Beijing before beating the Kiwis had come against Mali. They crashed to big defeats to the United States in their opener and also against the Spanish.

“It’s been a good experience, but disappointing at the same time,” said Tall Fern Lisa Wallbutton.

“Our goal was to make the top eight and that has been crushed by losing to the Czechs by such a large margin.

“I honestly think it’s just a matter of experience. We just need more time together and more international games.

“In the Spain game, we were six down with four minutes to go. Things could have gone either way, but we let it slip. It just comes down to experience.”

The Czech Republic are one of the mystery teams at this Olympic Games.

Viteckova, Machova, Jana Vesela and Ivana Vecerova were all members of the Czech side that won the EuroBasket Women three years ago in Turkey.

“We also have a lot of young girls in our team,” Viteckova said.

“We’ve had some changes, added players without experience.

“We have a lot of players from Brno who are used to playing with each other, but we also have others who aren’t used to playing with each other.

“Because of that last game with Spain, it will be very difficult for us (from the quarter-finals) but we’ll do our best.”

The aim is to avoid a quarter-final against Australia, but to give themselves a chance of doing that, they will need to upset China.

“We will try to beat China, but they are at home,” Viteckova said. “It will be difficult.”

Machova finished six of 12 from the floor and two of four from three-point range, while Viteckova was eight of 13 overall and three of six from behind the arc.

The European team also did a lot of damage at the free throw line, making 21 of 25 compared to just 10 of 12 for New Zealand.

The Kiwis turned the ball over 24 times, leading to 12 Czech points.

FIBA