Ndongue Decides For France

TURKEY 43 – FRANCE 55

France dominated the early stages of the game making it 10-2 after only 3:30. Sandrine Gruda scored her 8th point of the quarter –all jumpers from the key- to put  France ahead 12-7. Pierre Vincent rotated his bench after 6:30 putting his starters to rest –Gruda, Dumerc, Ndongue, Melain y Gomis- and their backups –Hermouet, Yacobou, Miyem, Lepron- struggled in front of Turkey’s defense scoring only two free throws in that frame. Ceyhun Yildizoglu’s team also struggled in the offense and couldn’t turn the score upside down and the first ended 14-11 for France.

In the second Vincent kept on combining different players but France’s best minutes were when Sandrine Gruda was on court. She made it 19-13 after 2 minutes where Turkey Could only score three free throws. In the minutes five Cathy Melain scored the three to spark a 7-0 run capped also by Gruda to put France in double digit margin 27-16 and 3:30 remaining but they struggled in the offense also and teams only managed to score six points in that frame – a jumper by Gruda to answer a shot from Tugba Palazoglu entering the two last minutes and a jumper from Nevin Nevlin with 9 seconds remaining to make it 29-20 at the interval.

Turkey scored a 26% (7-of-27) in field goals in the first half in front of a 35% (11-of-31) from France.

Defenses ruled the first six minutes of the third which saw a poor offensive display with a 3-2 run (32-23) in that time for France. In the last four minutes teams scored more fluently and traded baskets until the fourth in which teams entered 38-32 with France ahead.

In the last round defense was also tough but the offenses were more accurate . Birsel Vardarli made it 38-35 in the first play of the fourth but that was the closest Turkey would get since in the next two minutes they didn’t score while Emmeline Ndongue and Endene Miyem scored four points to put France ahead 35-42 and began a trading. After Nilay Yigit made it 44-41 with 4:45 remaining Yildizoglu’s team received an 8-0 run that closed the game sparked by Sandrine Gruda and capped by four straight points from Emmeline Ndongue, the best from Les Bleues in the last quarter to make it 52-41 with 1:45 and ice the game which ended 55-43.  

Francia Sandrine Gruda scored 20 pts.

Tugba Palazoglu had 12 pts and Birsel Vardarli added 10 more points for Turkey.