Puerto Rico opens the Women’s Basketball World Cup in Australia against a powerful rival

Puerto Rico, which was the team that obtained the last place in the FIBA World Cup Australia 2022will be active from this Wednesday in the first match of the event against a rival of a known style but with whom he has never collided.

Bosnia and Herzegovina will be the rival of the Puerto Rico Women’s National Basketball Team in the game that opens at 8:30 pm in Puerto Rico time the World Cup, which is being held in the city of Sydney with only 12 participating teams. Although the action starts according to the time zone in America tomorrow Wednesday, the game will actually be taking place at 10:30 am on Thursday morning in Australia.

Puerto Rico, which is on the world level for the third contest in a row after seeing action at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and at the last World Cup in Tenerife, Spain, in 2018, knows that the Bosnians are a team that plays the traditional style of European game, who are physical and skilful.

“Bosnia is a great team that for me has one of the best two players in the world in Jonquel Jones, who plays in the WNBA with Connecticut. She is a player who puts the ball on the ground, can shoot outside and is the type of player that can give us problems. And around her she has many shooters”, said the coach of the Puerto Rican national team, Jerry Batista, yesterday.

Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified for the World Cup for the qualifying event held in Osaka, Japan, in 2021, where they had Canada and the host as rivals. She opened that event by dropping wide to the Canadians and closed it by narrowly defeating Japan. Both Canada and Japan also qualified for the World Cup.

Batista warned that the loss of the Bosnians against Canada, a rival that Puerto Rico defeated in the last women’s AmeriCup, does not necessarily mean that the Puerto Ricans have an accessible scenario.

“I don’t like to let myself be carried away by the rankings or by the pairing of results against other teams because it could be that they are teams with the same qualities or that they are not similar. Bosnia’s game against Canada is not indicative that we can beat them”, Batista specified.

Puerto Rico, it is worth remembering, was the twelfth team signed up for the World Cup. He entered the event replacing Russia due to FIBA’s decision to exclude the country from the tournament due to the war that this nation maintains against Ukraine. Russia, in fact, had struck out its ticket by defeating Puerto Rico in a game for the pass to Australia 2022.

The game Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Puerto Rico is part of the Group A schedule, in which the United States, Belgium, China and Korea also play. The group will play a round robin in the first round. The best four of the group, as well as the best four of Group B which is made up of France, Serbia, Japan, Mali, Canada and Australia will advance to the quarterfinal round of the tournament.

The three-time defending world champion, the United States, will be Puerto Rico’s second rival on Thursday, followed by Belgium on Saturday and matches against China and Korea on Monday. The calendar reflects games as they can be followed on the Island.

The National Team, which has Carlos Morales and Leonel Aril, must have a different team from the one it has presented in its two previous big events: the 2018 World Cup and Tokyo 2020. The National Team has the loss of the striker who stood out in those events , Jazmon Gwathmey and has two new players in Arellas Guirantes Y Mya Hollingshed.

Guirantes made his debut in the 2021 World Cup and Hollingshed will make his first tournament in Australia. Hollingshed is the player that Puerto Rico naturalized this year.

The 12 selected are completed with guards Pamela Rosado, Jennifer O’Neill and Trinity San Antonio; the escort Zaida González; forwards Tayra Meléndez, Brianna Jones and Nairimar Vargas; forwards Sofía Roma and Isalys Quiñones, and center India Pagán.