France is in the quarters of the female hoops tournament. Thanks to back-to-back wins over Brazil and Japan, France managed to cop the second place in Group A and will be facing a dangerous Canadian side later tonight.
Against Japan, France leaned on the all-around brilliance of Sandrine Gruda, who scored 10 points, grabbed nine rebounds, and dished out four assists. Gruda and company had a field day dominating the glass against Japan, outrebounding their opponents by a massive margin of 43-22. Doing that again against a bigger Canadian lineup should be a more difficult task for France but Gruda should be able to hold her own.
On offense, France is going to rely on the pair of Endy Miyem and Olivia Epoupa. Miyem leads France in the tournament with 11.2 points per game, while Epoupa is not far behind with 11.0 PPG. The two players combined for 24 points on 8-for-19 shooting from the field.
Canada finished group play with a similar 3-2 record to France. The Canadians, though, are coming off a tough 73-60 loss to Spain and will be looking to recover from that when they take on France tonight.
Prior to that loss, Canada was blasted by USA, 81-51. The silver lining for Canada, however, is that they’ve faced the top teams in the tournament so don’t expect this squad to get intimidated by their higher-ranked opponent tonight in France.
Pacing Canada in scoring is Kia Nurse, who is putting up 11.0 PPG. Kim Gaucher, meanwhile, is the team’s top rebounder with 6.2 per contest. Nurse was radio silent against Spain, though, as she went 1-for-8 from the field to finish with eight points (6-for-7 from the free throw line).
