{"id":81196,"date":"2026-09-05T13:25:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T13:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/81196\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T13:25:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T13:25:24","slug":"mali-stuns-spain-82-73-in-major-womens-basketball-world-cup-upset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/81196\/","title":{"rendered":"Mali stuns Spain 82-73 in major Women\u2019s Basketball World Cup upset"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mali produced the first major upset of the FIBA Women\u2019s Basketball World Cup 2026, stunning Spain 82-73 in Berlin on Saturday to register only its second victory in the competition\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Mali, which lost 97-102 to Japan in its opening match, trailed Spain by two points at half-time before transforming the contest with a dominant third quarter.<\/p>\n

The African side outscored Spain 31-19 in the period, including a decisive 16-4 run after trailing 44-45. Sika Kone was central to the surge, hitting two three-pointers as Mali seized control.<\/p>\n

Kone, who plays for Atlanta Dream in the WNBA, finished with a double-double of 19 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ | On a comeback trail \u2014 Swastika Ghosh marks key milestone with win over World No. 25<\/a><\/p>\n

Mali carried its momentum into the final quarter, scoring the opening five points, including another three-pointer from Kone. Spain never managed to reduce the deficit below nine points thereafter.<\/p>\n

Djeneba N\u2019Diaye also contributed 19 points as Mali improved its overall Women\u2019s World Cup record to two wins in 12 matches.<\/p>\n

Its only previous victory at the tournament came against Senegal in overtime in 2010.<\/p>\n

Iyana Martin led Spain with 20 points, but the European powerhouse struggled to recover from Mali\u2019s third-quarter burst as both teams moved to a 1-1 record in Group A.<\/p>\n

(With inputs from AP..)<\/p>\n

Published on Sep 05, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mali produced the first major upset of the FIBA Women\u2019s Basketball World Cup 2026, stunning Spain 82-73 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30379,30382,30380,30376,30377,30381,17,30378,30274],"class_list":["post-81196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-fiba-womens-basketball-world-cup-2026","tag-mali-basketball","tag-mali-spain-82-73","tag-mali-vs-spain","tag-mali-women-basketball","tag-sika-kone","tag-spain","tag-spain-women-basketball","tag-womens-basketball-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}