“All the players played the best they could and did what they had to do differently than yesterday.”
Women’s World Cup 2022, the Japanese basketball team lost to Serbia 64-69 in the second game of the group league. Looking at the power rankings introduced on the FIBA official website just before the tournament, in Group B, the host country Australia was 2nd, Japan 4th, Canada 6th, France 8th, Serbia 9th, and Mali 12th. Although this is just a rough commentary, Japan is considered to have the highest ability, and for Serbia, it was a splendid upset achievement.
Serbia lost to Canada 60-67 in the opening match of the tournament the day before. With the loss to Japan here and the start of a losing streak, the yellow light was already on for the top 4 teams to advance to the final tournament, but they held on by showing the underlying strength that won the Women’s Euro Basket 2021 last year.
Serbia will be led by Marina Markovich, who has been the head coach of Denso Iris for two seasons until last season and is still involved as an advisor. As a matter of course, in addition to her students Maki Takada and Himawari Ako who belong to Denso, she is familiar with other national team players as opponents, and she firmly prevents three-point shots and transitions, which are Japanese weapons. board.
The head coach of the Japanese national team, Toru Onzuka, ended up with 5 out of 22 3-point shots failing, and looked back on the reasons why he could not bring in an up-tempo development. “I was aiming to create a pick-and-roll, but I couldn’t clear the opponent’s defense better in the setup than yesterday. I couldn’t connect to the transition offense because I was taken.”
Marina, who took off her hat for what Japan had done, said, “It was very sad to lose to Canada yesterday. All the players showed a strong desire to play as best as possible and make fewer mistakes.Unlike yesterday, everyone did what they had to do.”
“I don’t like playing against the team I was in, the players I was leading.”
Marina said about Serbia in this tournament, “Since then, five players have left the team, and the team is no longer champions of Europe. The team in this tournament is developing, centering on the new generation of players.” representatives continue to have the following problem.
“They are not only young, but they have no experience on the big stage. Unfortunately, the situation in the Serbian league is not good and they are at the level of university students in Japan. The problem for us is that it is not a high-quality league.The players are young and they are not playing in a high-level league.We have to learn and grow in the face of these two difficulties.”
“I am very happy that we were able to win against a wonderful team like Japan,” he said, emphasizing how important this win was for the team.
By the way, Marina says that the confrontation with familiar Japan “wasn’t particularly motivating.” However, it is not because she is not interested, but because she has a special feeling for Japan.
“First of all, I have a lot of respect for the Japan national team.I will continue to be a member of Denso and I love the team. I don’t like it.The Denso members were with me every day, so it’s like a family in Japan.It’s always a sentimental feeling to play against such an opponent.Today, Takada and Ako played brilliantly, but there There is no surprise in
Marina, who knows Japan well, gave Japan a challenge and lost. However, considering that tomorrow is a rest day and there is plenty of time left to rebuild, the fact that we were able to feel the shortcomings in the second game of the group league and the beginning of the tournament can be seen as a positive factor for further progress. In order to respond to Marina, who has shown great respect for Japan, we would like to use this defeat as motivation to show a step-up in the match against Canada two days later.