USA - Bradley Emmanuel BEAL - Day 8 of the 2010 FIBA U17 World Championship in Hamburg, Germany. 09/07/2010, Quarterfinal.
HAMBURG (FIBA U17 World Championship) – The United States of America gained their spot in the semi-finals, defeating Australia 105-70 – on the winning side all twelve players scored.
Canada was no done by just entering the quarter-finals two days earlier, thanks to buzzer-beating jumper from Owen Odigie over Spain.
The reigning FIBA Oceania Champs came into this game to challenge the U.S. for as long as they possibly could.
In this case „long“ meant a five minutes stretch (8-8, 5min). The U.S. took a lot of time off the clock with its full court pressure defense, sporting a 14-0 run (22-8, 8min). Australia regained its confidence with consecutive three point shots to come as close as 32-21 (14min), but could not match the American's athleticism in the long haul (52-36, 20min).
Coach Don Showalter limited his youngsters' minutes on court. So every U.S. player got to score in this contest, therefor Bradley Beal lead the way with 25 points – including 7-of-9 shooting from three point range. The guard trio of Quinn Cook (7), Tony Wroten (7) and Marquis Teague (8) dished out a combined 22 of the team's 24 assists. Now everything is ready for an american semi-final between USA and Canada.
Quotes:
Guy Molloy, Australia head coach : “I’m proud of my team. When we found out we would be playing the USA it was a matter of trying to identify an area of the game where the USA wouldn’t play so well. We decided that we would try to keep them away from the basket and hope their three-point play wouldn’t go so good. But their three point play turned out to be outstanding.”
Guy Molloy: “We missed too many free-throws and couldn’t keep the scoreboard pressure ticking along.”
Don Showalter, USA head coach: “Australia’s shuffle offense is certainly as good as any I’ve seen. If anyone wants to learn a shuffle offense, they should just watch their team.”
Damian Hill, Australia number 4: “We had to come here with a different game plan. Unfortunately we were not expecting them to shoot so many threes. Beal from the outside was outstanding netting five straight.”
Quinn Cook, USA number 4: “We prepared this game last night. We didn’t go out of our rooms to play around. We were sat watching film getting ready for these guys.”
FIBA / JB