Afrobasket Women 2009 – Ange and Maiwenn helped Madagascar top South Africa

The loss against Cameroon of the night before was to be forgotten. This is the third (straight) day of competition and dwelling on something bad won’t change anything. If I had to say something about this it would only be “lack of size”. We didn’t feel confident since the start of the game and lost valuable possessions. Plus our shooters felt short all night.

Afrobasket Women 2009- Madagascar South Africa

The game against South Africa was a must-win for both teams if they wanted to have a chance to advance to the quarter finals. Once I saw the average height of the South African players I said to my friends “Guys, we have our chance today”. I said it in my previous post “we’re good but we lack height in the paint”.

Madagscar had trailled through the first 10mn during which SA imposes its pace. Both teams seemed to opt for the “run and gun” tactic. Something I do like. SA also played fastbreaks well and their point guard was unstopable in the first half. The second quarter was better for the Malagasy team, we led in score for the first time at 1:00 to go when Maiwenn drived in for a layup  to set Madagascar ahead by 3pts. But SA drilled a 3pt before the buzzer to even the game at 40.

The second half was another thing for us. I don’t know what the coachs said to the players but we scored 35pts in the 3rdQ. A periode where Ange woke up. She drove in, took mid range  shoots and the ball always got in (32pts). Prisca, who felt cold the night before, reconciliated with her outside shoot and pourred down from the 3pt line – she scored 16pts.

It’s not easy to record a video and cheer at the same time.

Discovering Belinda Mboma, an expat from Belgium. She was one of the few players who scored more than 10 pts during the game against Cameroon. She is an all around player that can play at any position. She can drive, play post-up back to the basket and she can take 3pt shoots as well. Even though she didn’t not play much in the last game I’m sure she will gain more and more minutes as the tournament goes on.

As of today, two Malagasy players are among the top 3 scorers of this Afrobasket Women 2009.

Tahinjanahary Ange RASOAMBOLANORO (21 PPG)
Maiwenn Harihanta ANDRIAMILANDY (17 PPG)

This evening we’ll be playing Senegal – undefeated so far. When asked about this up coming game, the coach Aimé remained realistic and said “I won’t even say anything about this”.

Nigeria and Malia dissappointed me

It was kind of a bit boring as a game. Maybe my expectations were too much but I was dissapointed by the tiny-score game. As far as I remember, the last time I watched a less-than-50pt game was in highschool.

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