The Chinese women's basketball team put their fate in the hands of others in the final round, but with Belgium's big win and Nigeria and Australia both winning, the Chinese women's basketball team's dream of reaching the quarterfinals was dashed. The runner-up of the 2022 Women's Basketball World Cup fell in the group stage of the Paris Olympics, leaving endless regrets. With the strength of the Chinese women's basketball team, it would not have ended like this, and if it had not made many mistakes, the Chinese women's basketball team would have had a chance to reach the quarterfinals.
But everything is irreparable, which is a setback and lesson for the Chinese women's basketball team. The Chinese women's basketball team needs to be more soberly aware of its shortcomings. The Chinese women's basketball team still exposed a big problem in the personnel structure, and the ability of the guard was seriously degraded. Compared with the 2022 Women's Basketball World Cup, Wang Siyu, Yang Liwei, Li Yuan and Wu Tongtong have seen a decline in strength with the naked eye.
You must know that the four of them are all important rotation players of the Chinese women's basketball team, how can they maintain the level of the world runner-up in such a situation?
Wang Siyu averaged 10.7 points, 3.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game, shooting 44.0% from the field and 43.8% from three-point range. But she also averaged 3.7 turnovers per game. Wang Siyu scored 11 and 13 points against Serbia and Puerto Rico, respectively. But she only had 8 points and 5 assists in the first game against Spain, had as many as 6 turnovers, and made two mistakes at key moments, one was when she shouldn't have fouled, letting the opponent play 2+1, and the other was three points behind in the final minute of overtime, she did not shoot her own three-pointers, but passed to Li Yueru to attack the inside to score 2 points.
Wang Siyu used to be a key queen and repeatedly made contributions at critical moments, but she was also affected by injuries, and shoulder injuries have been bothering her.
Yang Liwei is inefficient offensively in this Olympics, as a starting point guard, he averaged 4.0 points, 2.7 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game, shooting only 22.2% from the field and 27.3% from three-point range. After returning from a major injury, Yang Liwei's breakthrough and shooting have declined, and his defensive ability has also declined.
Wu Tongtong's efficiency is also terrible, averaging only 2.3 points, 2.0 rebounds and 0.7 assists per game, shooting 25.0% from the field and 20.0% from three-point range. As an important backup defender, she underwent two knee surgeries and her speed and explosiveness declined. She was once a scoring weapon, scoring 13 points against the United States women's basketball team before going off the court with an injury. It's hard for her to score a goal in an open game right now, and she has shot 2-of-8 in three games.
Substitute point guard Li Yuan can basically share the playing time with Wang Siyu at his peak, and even surpass Wang Siyu, but Li Yuan only played two games in the Paris Olympics, averaging only 1.0 points, 2.0 rebounds and 0.5 assists per game, with a shooting rate of 33.3%. In the crucial game against the Puerto Rico women's basketball team, Li Yuan was completely abandoned.
Li Yuan is an important offensive organizer of the Chinese women's basketball team, and her failure has a great impact on the offense of the Chinese women's basketball team, and the team's offense is not so continuous. The Chinese women's basketball team also brought a young guard Yang Shuyu, who had an excellent performance in the warm-up game, beating the Australia women's basketball team, Yang Shuyu scored 23 points, in addition to 18 points in one of the matches against the Japan women's basketball team. In fact, against the Puerto Rico women's basketball team, the Chinese women's basketball team can use Yang Shuyu to rush up and win more points, especially in the final quarter of the Chinese women's basketball team's physical decline, the players repeatedly just shot three-pointers to end the offense, but could not shoot.
What is worrying is that Wang Siyu, Li Yuan, Yang Liwei and Wu Tongtong are indeed the top defenders in the WCBA league. Last season's WCBA league did not produce good seedlings that could challenge their status. The Chinese men's basketball team once had a headache about who would pass the ball for Yao Ming, because the guard problem was relatively big. Now the Chinese women's basketball team has a headache about who will pass the ball for Li Yueru and Han Xu. In the last two games, Li Yueru got obviously too few offensive opportunities. The inside advantage of the Chinese women's basketball team has not really been brought into play. In the next Olympic cycle, the Chinese women's basketball team needs to spend effort to cultivate some other guards and add some fresh blood.