Date
Author
Илья ТРИСВЯТСКИЙ; Екатеринбург
Source
Preserved copy
Translated material
Pre-season show
CSKA won the World League in Yekaterinburg
The capital's women's basketball club CSKA, previously known as the Samara team VBM-SSAU, became the winner of the fifth World League draw. In the final match, the wards of Latvian head coach Gundars Vetra, who had recently worked with the team, prevailed over the US national team - 75:65.The American women, which included players playing in the Russian Championship in the main roles - Diana Taurasi, Ty McWilliams, Sue Bird (all from Spartak near Moscow), Simon Augustus (Dynamo from the capital), partly took revenge for the defeat from Russian national team in the semi-finals of the “silver” 2006 World Championship for us. Ann Donovan's team defeated CSKA in the preliminary stage, and already in the playoffs of the World League dashed the hopes of winning the main prize from the girls from Yekaterinburg UMMC - 97:79. The home team lost to the Stars and Stripes a lot in the opening quarter - 15 points (18:33). Subsequently, the “Ural girls” lost by more than two dozen points, but to the credit of the home team, we note that they had enough strength and emotion to organize a belated chase. She, however, was not successful.
The new head coach of UMMC, Frenchman Laurent Bouffard, who previously worked with Valenciennes, was given the first big minus by the club management. But from the point of view of organization, UMMC has surpassed the best examples of holding continental and world official tournaments. In Yekaterinburg, where the stands were full for the last two days of the competition, a colorful show was prepared for the spectators and the participants themselves, and the Ural residents especially enjoyed the touching closing ceremony of the World League.
The Russian Basketball Federation, through the head of the RFB Sergei Chernov, initiated the creation of the World League, and is invariably responsible for its implementation. Tournament matches were played not only in the Urals - fans could watch women's basketball on a planetary scale in different years in Samara and on the banks of the Neva in St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, due to the lack of a firm position of the International Basketball Federation, the tournament as an official competition has recently taken on a kind of profanity.
For example, three years ago, six players from the capital’s Dynamo played for the “Baltic Star” as a form of “patronage”; in the 2005 season, the “blue and white” sent not their club’s players to the qualifying competitions, but a certain “hodgepodge”, according to composition that seems to resemble the Russian youth team. This time, the World League took place without representatives from two continents - Africa and South America, and the absence of the winner of the FIBA Euroleague and the current champion of Russia, Spartak near Moscow, looked especially cynical against the backdrop of the loud name of the tournament.
However, this did not affect the quality of basketball demonstrated by the World League participants. The American women's matches with UMMC and CSKA turned out to be very entertaining and pleased true connoisseurs of the game. The pre-season show, and for a number of participating teams the domestic championships had not really started yet, turned out to be a blast. In the final meeting, the most notable figures for the winners were Ilona Korstin (16 points), the best player in Europe in 2005 and 2006, center Maria Stepanova and her Belgian colleague Anne Wouters (11). Spaniard Amaya Valdemoro pleased the Ural public, who was sincerely worried about the “new” Muscovites, with three hits from behind a six-meter arc. Janel McCarville scored 18 points for the Americans.
It seems that the Stars and Stripes were unprepared for the tight defense of the army club. In the match with UMMC, due to some tactical myopia of Laurent Buffard, the American women often shot from the three-point arc without any resistance. Suffice it to say that only Taurasi, whom all our players already know very well, hit the UMMC hoop three times in the first few minutes from distance. True, for some reason, for Buffard, the ability of the US team players to fire at the opponent’s hoop from a distance of seven to eight meters turned out to be a terrible revelation, and he was unable to make timely adjustments to the actions of his team. Much less experienced as a women's basketball specialist, Gundars Vetra figured out the situation much faster than his titled colleague.
Ilona Korstin from CSKA was recognized as the Most Valuable Player of the World League. Stepanova became the best center, American Sue Bird became the best defender, and Australian Penny Taylor (UMMC) won in the same category for forwards.