Following their historic win against South Africa, Turkey lined up a second go at Germany in the 5th/6th play-off at the 2019 Women’s U25 World Championship.
Germany dominated in the opening five minutes keeping Turkey from getting a look at the basket, but despite a strong defence, their offence wasn’t quite firing, shooting 2 from 11 from the field. The shots then started to drop for Germany and they managed to open up a 14-4 advantage at the end of the first.
The second quarter continued in the same fashion as Germany’s defence proved too much for Turkey and they extended the lead to twenty-two points at half-time, 30-8.
Despite their clear advantage, Germany continued to make life difficult for the Turkish team by keeping the press defence on and limiting Turkey’s offensive chances.
Turkey’s heads dropped in the fourth and Germany’s confidence continued to grow with the whole team getting on the scoreboard to finish the tournament on a high, with a 60-13 win, finishing fifth and matching their finish in the 2015 U25 World Championship.
Germany’s Head Coach Dennis Nohl, said:
“We are feeling pretty good after that win, because we played basketball. We had a dominant defence and a dominant press defence, I never expected the fact that we could play a press defence. We had no weak minutes in this game and it’s such a good feeling to come out strong. The most important thing is we got every player on the board, we got 10 players and 10 scorers, and that was our thing today, it was a great team effort, a great team mentality and I’m very happy to end in fifth place.”
Discussing the team’s ambitions for the future, he said:
“Most players within team we can keep for at least the next four years so we have enough time to develop and train hard. Of course the loss against Japan showed every player that they have to do more at home not just with the national team. Then we are looking forward to the next two Europeans and then the Worlds in 2023, so we have enough time to prepare and plan.”
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Rewatch Germany versus Turkey
