Belarusian women’s national basketball team loses to China, with score of 67:72, at FIBA World Championship, hosted by Turkey, failing to qualify for the tournament’s quarterfinalsThe Belarusian squad, coached by Rimantas Grigas, seemed to be largely in the role of trying to catch up — despite having finished the first quarter one point ahead. In the second 10-minute game, they managed to pull ahead by 11 goals (43:32) and brought this to a 13 point advantage in the third (60:47). The final quarter saw the Chinese team truly seize the initiative, much to everyone’s surprise. After equalising, they took the lead and finally claimed victory, leaving the Belarus squad disorganised, despite many opportunities to score. Tatiana Likhtarovich claimed the greatest number of points for the Belarusian team: 20.
The Belarusian squad has failed to reach the 1/4 finals of the 2014 FIBA World Championship, being ranked second in Group C in the preliminary stage. The team has defeated Korea (70:64) and Cuba (70:69) while losing to Australia (45:87).
