Women’s Basketball World Cup: China get through qualifiers, but ‘want to be a better team’
Gong Luming’s side qualify before beating Czech Republic for third win of play-in tournament in Wuhan but he says ‘tougher tests lie ahead’
China’s women had already reached this year’s Fiba Basketball World Cup by the time they came up against the Czech Republic on Sunday, but there was no chance of their going easy.
Gong Luming’s side powered to an 84-74 victory, sealing their third win of the play-in tournament in some style, and putting the finishing touches to a qualification secured by Brazil’s 76-73 win over Mali hours earlier at Wuhan Sports Centre Gymnasium.
The win took China to second in the standings before they face the Brazilians in their final qualifying match on Tuesday.
With China guaranteed before the match against the Czechs of one of the 11 available places across four global qualifying tournaments, Gong said his side were not satisfied with just reaching the World Cup.
“We want to go further, we want to be a better team, so this game is also a good test for us,” the China coach said. “They played hard and challenged us, and things went well, things went wrong, and we tried to stay together and play together. In the future, we want to play better basketball together.”
The 68-year-old knows tougher tests lie ahead and hopes to pit his side against stronger opposition so they can work on building team chemistry and tactics.