The Chinese women's basketball team won consecutive games and finally won the top two places in the group after defeating Belgium as expected, thus occupying the first hand advantage in the quarterfinals draw.
According to the rules of this World Cup, the top two in the same group will not meet in the semi-finals, and the top two groups will not meet in the semi-finals, so after the Chinese team draws the fourth place in Group B France, another group of matches in the same half of the region will also be produced, that is, the host Australia against Belgium - for such a draw result, many fans have of course begun to imagine that with the good state of the Chinese women's basketball group stage, it is entirely possible to break out of the siege and then fight with the United States.
But it is still the old saying, the road has to be taken step by step, the meal must be eaten bite by bite, and the bitter memories of the Tokyo Olympics are still on the tip of the tongue: at that time, the Chinese team was not a champion in the group stage, and won Puerto Rico, Belgium and Australia, and the total net winning score was higher than that of the US women's basketball team, but the quarterfinals were defeated by Serbia.
Today's Chinese women's basketball team, no one will question whether they are strong enough. But to fight the key battle, not only rely on strength, but also rely on the impromptu play brought by a stable mentality, I hope that the women's basketball girl at 16:00 pm on September 29, Beijing time (Thursday), can do her best in a battle, break through the top four layer of window paper that has blocked us for four years.
Then around the women's basketball team, the public opinion of all parties this week can be described as a word of praise, such as Lao Yang pointed out several points of women's basketball well-trained:
Foul control against South Korea, give foot confrontation, but maintain body posture, never easy to start, at least one foul in one quarter;
Against Puerto Rico's offensive integrity, the whole game of 41 sports goals, there were as many as 41 assists, of course, FIBA rules to help teammates on the free throw line is also an assist, the Chinese team also had 3 sets of free throws on the day, but this assist rate is still amazing;
Including the defensive quality of the entire group stage, against four opponents outside the United States, the Chinese team averaged 52.5 points per game, driving the opponent's shooting rate to only 30.7%, and only 73 of 18 three-pointers, averaging 4.5 three-pointers per game.
All of the above is the best proof of the Chinese women's basketball team's tactical literacy and overall combat effectiveness, this team highlights a well-trained team from beginning to end, whether it is the sharing of the ball on the offensive end or the coordination of the defensive end, the Chinese girls have shown the quality that an excellent team should have.
So there was an interesting topic, a friend asked: how did the Chinese women's basketball team train in the end, and how did they become so powerful?
The answer to this question can be simple: catch up, the Chinese women's basketball team has a new golden generation.
Indeed, the talent conditions of this group of players are quite good, and the height of Han Xu and Li Yueru is of course a reward for heaven, including the combination of Li Meng's height, confrontation, speed and technology, and it is definitely an innate advantage that dominates.
But if we are willing to expand the thinking process a few steps, we may be able to get the real answer: the Chinese women's basketball team against Belgium, after the third quarter replaced Li Meng, Han Xu regained dominance, this team does not rely too much on one or two players, and Huang Sijing, Wang Siyu, Yang Liwei, Wu Tongtong, Zhang Ru, Pan Zhenqi, Li Yuan, these girls have different ages, growth experiences, learning backgrounds, and it is very rough to classify them as the "new golden generation".
What's more, we have witnessed a lot of real golden generation, such as Gasol, Navarro, Gabayosa of the Spanish men's basketball team, etc., such as Ginobili of the Argentine men's basketball team, Scola, Pepe Sanchez, etc. The common feature of these golden generations must be that they have emerged from the youth team, grow up together, and have an impressive record in intercontinental and even world youth competitions.
For example, in 2010, Li Meng participated in the U17 World Youth Championship and won the bronze medal with the team, and Yang Liwei was actually the only one who was her teammate at that time and now.
Perhaps we should believe what Holmes said: when you rule out all the wrong answers, then the rest, no matter how impossible it seems, is the right answer.
These Chinese women's basketball players, in the final analysis, were raised through the WCBA league – and their true, only, and crucial common denominator is that they all more or less experienced the golden seven years of the WCBA.
The early WCBA league, in the pattern and CBA is very similar, the Bayi team gathered the most advantageous talent resources, early established their dynasty, from 2001 to 2010, the Bayi team in 9 years 7 times to reach the final, five championship trophies; The champions of the other years belong to Liaoning, and the two strong forces firmly hold the league throne of the WCBA.
The variables began to appear in the 10th year of the WCBA, and Shen Bu defeated the Guangdong women's basketball team for the first time; The following year, that is, the 2012 finals, the two teams that met the peak were two teams that had invested a lot, but had never advanced to the finals before: Beijing and Zhejiang, and finally the Beijing women's basketball team won the first championship in team history under the guidance of Xu Limin, which fully proved that as long as they are willing to invest in the women's basketball field, they may have good results - so in the off-season of 2012, the real spoilers appeared, and the ambitious promoted Mashan West team turned out, and they brought the "undefeated queen" Maya Moore to the WCBA League. It also announced that the pattern of this league that has been maintained for more than 10 years has been completely broken.
Maya Moore has now faded out of the women's basketball world, but many fans still remember her original famous name, with a total record of 150 wins and 4 losses in four years at the University of Connecticut, becoming a WNBA champion in 2011, helping the Minnesota Bobcats win the championship that year, and winning her first Olympic gold medal with the US women's basketball team in the summer of 2012...
Her basketball life, where to go, where to win, but when she announced her joining the Shanxi women's basketball team in 2012, there were still many people who did not believe that she would directly lead this promotion horse.
Of course, when the league starts, everyone will believe it.
China News Service wrote in the WCBA season inventory report that year, "Under the unprecedented influx of the world's top foreign aid such as Moore and Cambage into China and formed a monopoly on an unprecedented scale, the WCBA also ushered in a year of extremely abnormal league pattern since its inception of 12 seasons." The past year has been the "year of foreign aid phenomenon" in Chinese sports, but whether it is in the Chinese Super League of Guangzhou Evergrande, or the CBA that parachuted in Maddy, foreign aid has not affected the league pattern as deeply as in the WCBA. ”
True, Maddy hasn't changed the CBA, but Maya Moore can, not to mention more than one Maya Moore. In order to attract reinforcements to Shanxi that season, Guangdong and Zhejiang, who have both reached the finals, also have ace foreign aid, Guangdong signed the 2011 WNBA regular season MVP Tamika Katzings, and Zhejiang team introduced Liz Cambech, who was shocked at the London Olympics.
These world's top women's basketball players came to the WCBA, completely opening a new chapter in the Chinese Women's Basketball League, in the view of the China News Agency at the time, this was "an abnormal league pattern, normal foreign aid monopoly, and a painful and happy progress for the 12-year-old WCBA after all."
Pain, belongs to some teams, Bayi team suffered a huge impact, once reduced to a relegation team; But the progress belongs to the entire WCBA league, although each team has only one foreign aid quota, but as long as the foreign aid is strong enough to be horizontal, the impact on teammates and opponents is huge.
The Shanxi women's basketball team finally wrote the "Kaiserslautern myth" and won the championship as a promoted horse. Looking back 10 years later, the WCBA may have experienced more than just an era of "pain and happiness", which was the golden age of the Chinese Women's Basketball League.
Maya Moore in the WCBA still continued her "undefeated myth", which announced the beginning of the battle between the various princes, a large number of WNBA superstars began to land in this new gold rush, correspondingly, some women's basketball teams represented by the Shanxi team, there was a hard to find hot ball market, Shanxi women's basketball boss Wang Haizhen patted his chest and said, "Although the club did not get considerable profits last season, but won the recognition and support of the home audience." This season, our investment has only increased, hoping to attract more fans to the Shanxi team and the entire WCBA league through our efforts. Wang Haizhen said.
Stimulated by such a large catfish, the entire WCBA league was activated, and in the years since, the foreign players who have appeared in the WCBA arena include:
2014 WNBA regular season MVP, 4-time WNBA champion Maya Moore, 2012-16 for Shanxi;
3 WNBA first-team players, 2 WNBA scoring champions, 8 block kings Brittney Grina, 2013-14 for Zhejiang;
3-time WNBAMVP, 2-time overall winner Lauren Jackson, 2013 for Heilongjiang;
2011 WNBA regular season MVP, 2012 finals MVP Tamika Kachins, 2012-13 for Guangdong;
2-time WNBA regular season MVP, WNBA Grand Slam winner Candice Parker, 2016 for Guangdong, 2017-18 for Xinjiang;
2012 WNBA regular season MVP, 8-time All-Star Tina Charles, played for Xinjiang, Sichuan and Beijing in 2015-19;
2016 WNBA regular season MVP, 7-time All-Star Enneka Ohumick, 2013-14, 2018-19 two times for Guangdong;
2017 WNBA regular season MVP, 2nd Finals MVP Sylvia Foles, played for Shanghai and Beijing from 2013 to 2018;
2018 WNBA regular season MVP, 2nd Finals MVP Briana Stewart, 2016-18 for Shanghai;
2020 and 2022 WNBA regular season MVP winner Aja Wilson, 2018-19 for Shaanxi;
2021 WNBA regular season MVP, this World Cup Bosnia and Herzegovina naturalized player Joan Jones, 2017-18 for Shanxi...
In a word, in the 13 years since 2010, WNBA has been elected MVP with a total of 11 different players, all of whom have come to the WCBA League, the only exception of which is Elena Deldorn, who chose to return due to climate discomfort after arriving in China, but the other 10 players have all shed their own sweat in the Chinese Women's Basketball League, and even these MVPs can not summarize the full picture of WCBA league foreign aid, after all, in addition to Grina and Campegg, the two monsters. There are also a large number of WNBA-level All-Star players who cannot be exhausted.
So imagine if every team in the CBA had only one foreign aid slot, but these were all James, Durant, Curry, Alphabet, Jokic, how could the CBA players not improve? To some extent, it is the WNBA's meager salary income that gives the WCBA this opportunity, which also gives Chinese players a good opportunity to compete and learn at the club and the world's highest level athletes.
Maya Moore established the Shanxi Dynasty, and then things went away, but within the Beijing team, Shao Ting, who had been in the regular season and playoffs for many years, quickly honed out, and together with Fowles, led the Beijing team to take over the WCBA and established the Beijing Dynasty.
As for Li Yueru, Huang Sijing, Yang Liwei and Dilana, it was in 2019 that they won the first championship in team history together with Ohumik, when the new Bayi who merged the two teams of Bayi and Shenbu restored their competitiveness, Li Meng, Sun Mengran, Wang Xuehao, and Pan Zhenqi have been playing with Guangdong for five games before winning or losing - Pan Zhenqi, who was watching Ohumic at the time, how could he be afraid of Jonker Jones a few days ago?
Looking back at the 2018-19 season, although the wave of foreign aid in the WCBA cooled down slightly, in addition to Ohumic, there are still WNBA's All-Star level players such as Devana Bonner, Stefani Doerson, Natasha Howard, Aja Wilson, etc. This is also the first year of the Chinese women's basketball team's two youngest players Han Xu and Li Yuan in the professional league, and they caught up with the tail of this golden era.
This season, when Han Xu was playing for the New York Freeman, he echoed with the team's main inner line, Natasha Howard, and when asked where the tacit understanding between the two came from, Howard said: "Don't forget, Han Xu played in the professional league in the first year of his career, and I was her teammate." "This is the past of the women's basketball team in Xinjiang that year, but after 2019, the epidemic struck, foreign aid has left the WCBA, and the teams that are willing to invest in the past two years, such as Inner Mongolia and Sichuan, can only focus on domestic players, which further causes the strength of the teams to disappear from each other.
But fortunately, after nearly 10 years of experience, in the process of co-training, alignment and climbing with the world's strongest players, WCBA has been able to select the best of the best to give birth to a group of players, which are now heroic and cool in the international arena. For example, Li Meng, Huang Sijing, Yang Liwei, Wang Siyu, including the slightly longer Shao Ting, their rise from 2018 is no accident, it is the long-term grinding that makes this group of players finally enter the stage of full strength.
Unfortunately, in recent years, the WCBA, because of the excessive expansion of the army, the whole Chinese class, single circulation, concentrated air games and other multiple reasons, the competitiveness of the cliff decline, the past season Inner Mongolia and Sichuan two teams in the regular season a total of 33 wins and 1 loss, the only 1 loss is because Sichuan defeated Inner Mongolia at that time, the average point difference between the two teams to defeat other teams reached 47.5 points and 33 points, such a league may be difficult to cultivate an effective reserve force. Therefore, the Chinese women's basketball team can only consolidate the state of this group of national players through long-term training and high-strength training, of course, this way is also effective at present, and it seems that in the next few years, the combat effectiveness of the national team can also be guaranteed in this way without discount.
After all, the average age of this year's women's basketball team is only 26 years old, and the oldest Wu Tongtong in the regular rotation is only 28 years old, and they have enough ability to insist on a few more years and harvest a few more years for the Chinese women's basketball team. But hopefully, the day they stand on the podium, we can remember where they came from, and that's where the strength is.