Spain blasted out of the gates against Australia. A few less absences would have made this tournament even more fun. Italy missed Matilde Villa for sure. It would have been great to see France go all out and bring Carla Leite too instead of having Leila Lacan be the star here and letting Leite run the U20s.
she has like a superhero’s name, it’s so majestic-sounding lol. hope she becomes someone special at the collegiate level!
Her sister's name is Savannah so she goes by Savvy Swords.
Are you watching any of this? Soltau was a DNP in the first game and only available for limited minutes against the United States. It would be nice to see her minutes at a high level this season before she heads to Washington.
First Half Spain continues to be a great team, but they have to figure out the whole second half thing at some point.
she has like a superhero’s name, it’s so majestic-sounding lol. hope she becomes someone special at the collegiate level!
Her sister's name is Savannah so she goes by Savvy Swords.
Are you watching any of this? Soltau was a DNP in the first game and only available for limited minutes against the United States. It would be nice to see her minutes at a high level this season before she heads to Washington.
First Half Spain continues to be a great team, but they have to figure out the whole second half thing at some point.
the parents' name game is strong, but they still lose a few points in my book for the alliteration aka the redundancy of it all. still, great individual names. 🤓
ummmmm how do i say this? i totally completely forgot that Annika Soltau would be in this seeing as Germany is. 😳😳😳 never would've clicked in the ole noggin, so thank you so much for bringing her up. now i definitely need to make time to watch at least Germany's games – assuming Soltau gets in on the rotation eventually. i've seen intriguing highlight reels, but i still have no idea how good she truly is, and could yet become. i only know Michigan was one of her other finalists, so we weren't fighting off just anyone for her services. i also hear there is[/was?] an outside chance she could reclassify from the 2024 to the 2023 class, which would be a very interesting development...
In terms of games that were supposed to be contested, Japan edged Lithuania. I am assuming that Jocyte will get more aggressive in the knockout rounds. Mali defeats Germany and then France defeated Australia in the last group stage game.
Her sister's name is Savannah so she goes by Savvy Swords.
Are you watching any of this? Soltau was a DNP in the first game and only available for limited minutes against the United States. It would be nice to see her minutes at a high level this season before she heads to Washington.
First Half Spain continues to be a great team, but they have to figure out the whole second half thing at some point.
the parents' name game is strong, but they still lose a few points in my book for the alliteration aka the redundancy of it all. still, great individual names. 🤓
ummmmm how do i say this? i totally completely forgot that Annika Soltau would be in this seeing as Germany is. 😳😳😳 never would've clicked in the ole noggin, so thank you so much for bringing her up. now i definitely need to make time to watch at least Germany's games – assuming Soltau gets in on the rotation eventually. i've seen intriguing highlight reels, but i still have no idea how good she truly is, and could yet become. i only know Michigan was one of her other finalists, so we weren't fighting off just anyone for her services. i also hear there is[/was?] an outside chance she could reclassify from the 2024 to the 2023 class, which would be a very interesting development...
I think that it would be better for her to come over sooner rather than later. I think that she is more accepting of playing the 4 or 5 these days, but still needs to avoid developing bad habits. Hopefully they give her good minutes in the last four games.
Haidara has signed in Spain's top division this season so this tournament for Mali will hardly be the only easy evaluation point to see if she should sneak into the back half of the draft. Tough loss for Australia as they never got all their star players really firing at the same time. These are only small data points for Borlase and Puoch before the draft. France looked pretty unconvincing against Germany and it would have been nice to see Lacan play with another star guard and not try to hero ball her way through big games. She should get the chance to score a lot on the club level this season though.
It seems not worth another thread, but a player score 62 points and had 16 steals in Division C of the European U16 Championships in Georgia's 120-32 win over Gibraltar. Seems kind of unusual for a coach to leave a star in for 29 minutes when she played 38 minutes the day before with 37 points and 9 steals and you need to win the next day to advance.
The quarterfinalists also got to play on the new floor. Lacan is going to need to bring the same level of play if France is going to compete with the United States at all. Spain and Canada have more players available than in their exhibition meeting so it will be a different look for both teams.
I think Canada would have been the more interesting matchup against the United States, but Fam could make life hard for the American post defense. Spain does have multiple guards who can get into scoring runs.