On Saturday, the Belgium women’s national basketball team lost 87-48 to Spain in Wevelgem, West Flanders. Emma Meesseman scored 18 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, stole the ball three times, assisted twice, and blocked twice to lead the Cats. Besides her, no one else scored in double figures. As for Spain, Marta Xargay scored 19 points while Alba Torrens scored another 17.
Belgium’s best moment in this game was when they took a quick 9-6 lead. But from there, it was nasty, unless you’re Spanish of course. The Spanish had lengthy scoring runs by as many as 16 points and even led by as many as 41 at one point.
You can watch the game above from TIB.tv’s YouTube channel (commentary in Dutch).
Here are some main takeaways from this game:
Ann Wauters needs to be benched
Remember on Saturday when I said that Belgium’s head coach Philip Mestdagh should call out Ann Wauters for only grabbing one rebound despite a 20 point performance? She followed that up with a ZERO rebound performance. Unacceptable.
If I’m Mestdagh, I bench her for Saturday’s send off game against the Netherlands. You can’t let a veteran do that.
Where’s the rebounding?
Besides Meesseman’s 8 rebounds, no one else grabbed more than three. For Spain, every player managed to grab a rebound. You can’t expect to win games when you grab 19 rebounds, and allow the opponent to nearly double you up.
The Cats did attempt more threes
If there’s one positive thing from this game, it’s that Belgium attempted more threes. Unfortunately, the efficiency wasn’t there as they went 4 of 19 from deep.
Next up: The Netherlands
The Cats have an easier match up this Saturday when they face the Orange Angels from that land up north where windmills, Gouda cheese, stroopwafels and Heineken beer reign supreme. In Belgium, they’d rather see big cathedrals, mussels, Liège waffles and Duvel beer instead.
It’s Belgium’s final tune up before EuroBasket Women, but it’s also an opportunity to take out their anger from a winnable performance last Friday, and a piss poor performance yesterday, even if they weren’t expected to win.