Previewing The Tall Ferns On Their 2023 Asia Cup Quest
The FIBA Women’s Asia Cup is taking place in Sydney, Australia next week and the Tall Ferns have a task ahead of them. Winning this thing may not be realistic but that’s fine, the real task is getting into the top four. Not only would that be the team’s best performance at an Asia Cup but it’d book them a ticket into the Olympic qualification tournaments as well. The Tall Ferns have not been to an Olympic Games since 2008. They’ve also never made the semis of the Asia Cup before, their three previous efforts (since Oceania got swept up into these Asia FIBA tournaments) serving up a sixth-placed finish and two fifths.
That’s the target. And they’ve cut no corners in trying to get the best preparation possible coming fresh off a five-game tour of Europe... compare that to the last Asia Cup in 2021 which came about after two years without a single international fixture. Big write-up on that 2021 effort over here, by the way. In this 2023 edition the TFs will face South Korea, China, and Lebanon in their group. Top place goes straight to the semis while two and three go into the playoffs where they’ll have to win a knockout game in order to progress to the top four. The other group features Australia, Japan, Chinese Taipei, and Philippines. There are also classification games at the end for what that’s worth – seventh place, fifth place, and third place playoffs to go with the final.
The Tall Ferns travelled to Europe with a young and inexperienced group. They’d earlier been working with an 18-player squad in camp in Aotearoa but a few injuries took out some of the candidates before the travelled. First and foremost was Mary Goulding being involved in a serious car accident about a month ago. It was something that rocked the entire kiwi basketballing community but thankfully it sounds like MG is now on the road to recovery. She was moved out of critical condition three weeks ago and last week surprised her Ferns teammates with a video message from her hospital bed spurring them on in their foreign mahi. Goulding had just gotten back from an achilles tear that had ruled her out of the Aussie NBL season. Hoping for a speedy recovery for MG.
On top of that they were without Lauryn Hippolite who was away with the 3x3 U23s national team while Chevannah Paalvast and Tahlia Tupaea were out injured. Grace Hunter was called up after Goulding’s accident, while head coach Guy Molloy didn’t travel to Europe because of his commitments with the Southland Sharks in the Men’s NBL – meaning that Jody Cameron, Leanne Walker, and Mel Downer kept the coaching duties on lock and, frankly, that’s a pretty formidable trio of assistants to have stepping up in that situation. It was Jody Cameron who officially took the head coaching responsibilities.
The first three games of the Euro tour were against Serbia and they lost all three. No dramas there. Serbia are one of the best teams in the world, a top ten ranked nation and the reigning champions of the EuroBasket comp... although they were also leading into a continental competition and subsequently got bounced in the quarter-finals by Belgium.
Still, they’re considerably better than the Tall Ferns so it was no surprise to see them bagging victories. First game was 83-64, second game was 80-65, third game was 75-50. There seemed to be a pattern across the series of the Ferns getting blown out early and then clawing thing back a bit in the second half, presumably as Serbia went deeper in their rotations. The one exception was the second game where they were only down one point after the first quarter and six at the break as they were able to limit Serbia’s three-point shooters. But free throws and defence eventually swung it for the Serbs with room to spare.
In comparison, the first game had seen the Tall Ferns do some tidy things inside where they led the points in the paint and total rebounds stats despite the 19-point defeat. Yet they were bossed in the paint in the next two games with the third spoiled by scoring only 16 points in the first half. They did win the rebounding tallies again in that one... however they also had a disgusting 32 turnovers. So it goes. An inexperienced squad playing away against a great team like that. It was never about the results.
Here are some stats courtesy of Basketball NZ (note who the top scorer was in all three)...
The last two fixtures on the tour were both in Turkey, first against Poland and then against Turkey themselves. Poland were the odd ones out as a team ranked below New Zealand according to the FIBA numbers and, sure enough, the Tall Ferns delivered the goods with a 73-62 victory. Tera Reed led the way with 24 points and 10 rebounds including 3/5 from deep. Charlisse Leger-Walker added another 22 points while Stella Beck (7p/6r) and Krystal Leger-Walker (6p/6r/4a) each chipped in with some valuable all-round contributions. Poland closed things up in the latter minutes too so the margin of victory ended up flattering them more than it ought to have. It was an excellent victory and one which should give them plenty of confidence for the road ahead.
They then lost 89-64 to Turkey. Penina Davidson had a strong game with 12p/10r/4a but other than that it was a bit of a dud. Maybe some fatigue coming through? Also Turkey are only ranked a couple spots beneath Serbia so it was another instance of the Aotearoa team being considerable underdogs. Although let it be known that, just like Serbia, Turkey also disappointed at EuroBasket soon afterwards. They went out in the group stage, which included a 71-63 loss to Serbia themselves before being beaten by co-hosts Slovakia in their third pool game to be eliminated.
Okay so that was the European tour, next up came the naming of the Asia Cup squad...
That group marked four changes from the Euro tour. In came Tupaea, Trousdell, Mason, and McGoldrick and out went Kendall Heremaia, Ash Kelman-Poto, Ash Taia, and Lilly Taulelei. Great to have the (relative) experience of Trousdell in a squad that’s still very youthful. Needed some of that. McGoldrick’s also a welcome addition while it’ll be funky to finally see Tahlia Tupaea – the 2022 Tauihi MVP – with that fern on her jersey after switching allegiances from Australia where she’d played at youth level. 17 year old Ritorya Tamilo is the bolter in the team even if she was also part of the Euro tour. Parris Mason and Tupaea are the two uncapped selections.
Due to a combination of reasons there are only three players returning from the 2021 Asia Cup squad. Those three players are the Leger-Walker sisters and Penina Davidson. Granted, if you were forced to only pick three of those players then this trio would be the ones. They were the three top performers in that previous edition with Davidson leading the way averaging 15.1 points and 8.0 rebounds per game. As to the rest of them, some are injured and some didn’t get picked. Kalani Purcell and Tessa Boagni are both on maternity breaks. Not sure why Lauryn Hippolite hasn’t returned after her 3x3 commitments, maybe because she wasn’t already on the tour or maybe it’s simply the long queue in the guard positions edging her over to the side.
That recent tour, as well as a trip to Australia a few months back to play friendlies against some NBL clubs, will be hugely valuable for this team as they seek to integrate so many fresh options into the group. Most of the veterans who’ve led them for the last decade have moved on, leaving Davidson as the most capped in this squad with 57 senior internationals to her name. Stella Beck is right there with her on 56 caps and after that it’s a tie between Charlisse Leger-Walker and Josie Trousdell on 36 each. KLW has 23 caps... and nobody else in this squad has more than 11. That’s 7/12 players with 11 or fewer caps, two of them uncapped entirely. For a major tournament with Olympic qualifying ramifications. Alrighty then.
This is a new look Tall Ferns group and that comes with a lot of unknowns. The World Rankings have them as the fifth best team in the confederation and there’s quite a drop from the top four to them. China (2), Australia (3), Japan (9), and South Korea (12) are the expected semi-finalists and it’s going to take an upset for the Tall Ferns (29) to sneak ahead of any of them. Of course it pays not to read too much into world rankings... but it’s also true that new look squads don’t tend to be the ones that spring the upsets at these things.
Yet the Tall Ferns do have one massive ace up their sleeve: Charlisse Leger-Walker. The previous Asia Cup wasn’t her best as she struggled with her shot and with the responsibility of leading the team’s offence at 20 years of age. Since then she’s had two more magnificent years at college level and is now a sure bet to be drafted into the WNBA after her upcoming senior season. Players who’ve achieved what she has always get drafted. Don’t even worry about it.
Leger-Walker has blossomed so much in those two years. Her performances and conduct during Washington State’s Pac-12 title run made it abundantly clear that her leadership abilities are now through the roof and the consistency of her scoring is exactly what you need in tournament play. CLW is one year away from doing things that only one New Zealander in history has ever done (shout out to Megan Compain). In fact this may be the last time we see her for the Tall Ferns prior to her WNBA coronation... might as well add some more golden highlights to the reel, aye?
We don’t need to overthink this. A top four Asia Cup finish isn’t going to be easy to manage but if the Tall Ferns do get it done then it’ll probably be on account of yet another week of tournament wonders from Charlisse Leger-Walker. She’s done it before and she’ll do it again.
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