Analyzing Finland’s WU18 Team Ahead of EuroBasket
Prospects for the coming month!
I have written about this team a bit in the past, but will continue to do so as they are the first team to head into this summer’s EuroBasket A-division .. but here are my insights into Finland WU18 basketball national team ahead of WU18 EuroBasket.
With EuroBasket being played in the sunny La Palma from the 5th-13th of July, Finland however will head to Spain early with an invitation from the host team to come and play a warm-up tournament in La Palma from the 29th of June to 1st of July.
Like the WU17 team last summer, when traveling to Mexico – Finland will take advantage of arriving to the tournament location early and get settled before the games start.
In the warm-up tournament Finland will be joined by by France, Poland and Spain – will it be two or three games – the article where I picked this up from.. does not say.
Above a link to the FEB article – which could NOT be embedded for some reason?
Summer so far
Finland spent the last week in Södertälje at the Nordic Championships – going 5-0 and not really being tested in a big way – so these games do not yet tell the level of this summers WU18 team.
The pre-EuroBasket tournament in Spain will tell much more where the team is going and what are their chances at EuroBasket.
I just hope that FEB will have some sort of YouTube or other streams from the warm-up games!!
On the FIBA WU18 website – so far on the vote there Finland has 37% of the vote as to ‘Who will win the FIBA WU18’ – but I guess the article has not yet reached few countries with the biggest ‘propaganda machine’ (read – active fans) .. so we will see…
Team
Coach Hänninen traveled to Sweden with 14 players – which I guess will be down to 12 .. or why not all 14 still travel to Spain??
Back court (OK – with my own opinions and views who is back court.. so 😉 :
Aino Koskela, Mona Pasanen, Erika Mace, Tiia Talonen – probably the PG set to choose from if Nordics are anything to go by.
There is pace, ball handling skill, scoring from running the basket, scoring from behind the arc – Koskela and Pasanen both were given plenty of game time in Sweden and they both impressed me big time. Mace and Talonen – I have seen them play more, so had already an idea of their skills and playing style.
Wings : (same disclaimer as above!) :
Jessi Nenonen, Ada Luukkanen, Anna Gardziella, Iida Riihelä
Nenonen was the standout the Nordics, player who impressed me in the opening game and really was the MVP of the tournament. Luukanen really has taken some MASSIVE streps over the season at HBA – and is a dominating presence on the court. With Gardziella – I have made deal that she sends me a WhatsApp message prior to each game to say how many three pointers she will score at each game in EuroBasket – as she was right in the three games at the Nordics when she told be before a game how many threes she was going to score. Riihelä does lot of the work that might not show on the scoreboard – but is essential for a team to succeed and win games, so brings into the team the factor that sometimes only coaches notice.
Front court :
Eevi Seppä, Duaa Aden, Nicole Ogun, Aluel Machol, Silja Loukola, Alina Nikkilä
Have maybe went heavy on putting these six into the ‘front court’ – but they can all attack the basket in different ways – others are more ‘agile’ – others use more strength to bully their way to the basket, others play the game above the defence – Finland has variety of options and playing styles to throw to the big end of the court, depending on the opposition. What a very nice problem for the coaching staff to have.
That was the 14 players in Södertälje – and who knows will this be the Final 14 .. or?? Only the coach knows this – and maybe even he still looks at his options. But – when you have 14 players in the Nordics.. I would guess that is the group from which players are chosen.
Expectations
This is a tough one – last summer was such a high for this age group.
WU16 unexpectedly won the European Championship
WU17 reached the Top in the World Cup
So if you use simple math – U16 European Champions + U17 World Cup players = One very strong squad!!
But – being a Finn, I try not to get carried away too easily – there were some really strong teams in WU16 last summer, and in the WU17 World Cup, Finland did lose to European teams. Then having said that – if last summer proved anything.. it was that Finland can get success at the Women’s Youth tournaments (shame that out FIBA Girls ranking will take a bit of a dive after the decision not to have a WU20 team this summer).
Having followed the team in the Nordics every day – you could sense that this team has their sights set on something ‘bigger’ than the Nordics this summer. Whether that was just my thoughts – or whether the team feels/thinks this, I am not sure. Just looking at their demeanour .. I have an inkling that their sight are at the EuroBasket success.
THE team to watch this summer?
Bold statement with the Men having a group at home in EuroBasket as well – but the WU18 team really is the one that you could say has some expectations on their shoulders. Although – so does every team that goes into any tournament ..
For me – the WU18 could be the team to bring the best finishing position for Finland this summer at the various EuroBasket’s .. hopefully the team won’t take too much pressure from this, I just hope the team will reach the goals they have set themselves and play as well as we all know they can!
