China’s women had already reached this year’s FIBA Basketball World Cup when they went down against the Czech Republic on Sunday, but there was no way to go easy.
Gong Luming’s side cruised to an 84-74 victory, sealing their third playoff win in style, moving into the final qualifying spot secured by Brazil’s 76-73 win over Mali hours earlier at the Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium.
The win moved China up to second in the standings before they meet the Brazilians in their final qualifier on Tuesday.
With China being assured before the match against the Czechs of one of the 11 places available in the four world qualifying championships, Gong said his team is not satisfied with just reaching the World Cup.
“We want to go further, we want to be the best team, so this game is also a good test for us,” the Chinese coach said. “They played hard and challenged us, and things went well, things went wrong, and we tried to stay together and play together. In the future, we want to play better basketball together.”
The 68-year-old knows the toughest tests lie ahead and hopes to pit his team against tough opposition so they can work on building team chemistry and tactics.
