Basketball New Zealand

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Tall Fern guard Noni Wharemate and Chinese counterpart Feifei Siu contest possession

Hosts China continued to show their readiness for the Olympics, crushing the NZ Tall Ferns 99-73 for their third victory at the Good Luck Beijing tournament.

Twenty four hours after toppling world champions Australia and playing in front of 18,000 parochial fans, the home team never gave the Kiwis a sniff of a chance, jumping on them early with 12 unanswered points during a 27-12 opening period and keeping their foot on the throat throughout.

“They came out firing in the first quarter and we were down by 22 at halftime,” explained coach Mike McHugh. “We played them even in the second half, but they had too big a lead.”

The Kiwis ran China within four points in a “friendly” encounter last week, a game that saw them compete strongly against much bigger opponents. This time, the Chinese out-rebounded them almost two-to-one and shot 63% from the field, outscoring the Ferns 60-26 in the paint.

“The result was disappointing,” said McHugh. “We thought we could do pretty well or win this game after the last week’s result and the progress made.

“But they are well coached, playing in front of a big home crowd and probably a bit stung by how close we got last time.”

Centre Chen Nan also chose this game to show her world class, piling on 21 of her game-high 26 points (12/14 FG, 2/4 FT) and eight rebounds in the first half.

New Zealand’s cause was not helped by limited effectiveness, through injury, of starting centre Jess McCormack, who would normally match up against Chen, at this event. She managed two fouls and three turnovers in nine scoreless minutes.

Point guard Angela Marino again led the Ferns in scoring with 13 points (4/15 FG, 2/6 3pt, 3/3 FT) and four assists, while back-up point Noni Wharemate had 11 points (5/8 FG, 1/1 FT) and six rebounds.

McHugh and his coaching staff were up late analysing game video afterwards, planning to use the rest day as a chance to fix the worrying lapses that afflicted their performance against China.

“We’re not so much disappointed in the scoreline as the way we played,” he said. “We broke down in areas we had previously done well – particularly defensively – and we need to address that immediately.”

Play will resume on Wednesday at the official Olympic test event with New Zealand facing the United States, then Australia in their final round robin outing on Thursday.

Good Luck Beijing

Beijing, China
Monday, April 21
China 99 (Nan Chen 26, Lan Bian 15, Fan Zhang 12) NZ Tall Ferns 73 (Angela Marino 13, Noni Wharemate 11, Michaela Cocks 10)
Q 27-12
HT 50-28
3Q 74-53 (24-25)
FT 99-73 (25-20)

Box Score – China v NZ

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