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Mali’s Sika Kone vies for the ball with Spain’s Maite Cazorla, left, during the women’s World Cup basketball match between Mali and Spain, in Berlin, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026. (Andreas Gora\/dpa via AP)<\/p>\n
Andreas Gora\/Andreas Gora\/DPA via AP<\/p>\n
Germany’s Lina Sontag blocks Japan’s Kokoro Tanaka during the Women’s Basketball World Cup match between Germany and Japan in Berlin, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ebrahim Noroozi\/AP Photo\/Ebrahim Noroozi<\/p>\n
German players react during the Women’s Basketball World Cup match between Germany and Japan in Berlin, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ebrahim Noroozi\/AP Photo\/Ebrahim Noroozi<\/p>\n
France’s Marine Johannes shoots during the Women’s Basketball World Cup match between France and Korea in Berlin, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ebrahim Noroozi\/AP Photo\/Ebrahim Noroozi<\/p>\n
BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Mali pulled off the first stunner of the Women’s Basketball World Cup by shocking Spain 82-73 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
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It was only the second win ever in tournament history for the African country, which beat Senegal in overtime in 2010.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Mali was down two at the half, but outscored Spain 31-19 in the third quarter to take the lead. Mali went on a 16-4 run in that period after it was down 45-44 to take command. Sika Kone, who finished with 19 points, had two 3-pointers during that game-changing run. Kone, who plays for the Atlanta Dream in the WNBA, also had 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Mali (1-1) scored the first five points of the fourth quarter, including another 3-pointer by Kone, to put the game away as Spain could get no closer than nine the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
Djeneba N’Diaye also had 19 points for Mali, which is 2-10 in its World Cup history.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Iyana Martin scored 20 points for Spain (1-1), which was one of the top teams in the world.<\/p>\n Host Germany slows down Japan for first win<\/p>\n Germany got off to a fast start and slowed down Japan in a 74-58 win.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In front of a sold-out crowd that was loud for the entire game, Germany outscored Japan 28-11 in the first quarter. Japan, which beat Mali 102-97 in its opener Friday, couldn’t find any rhythm against the hosts. A day after hitting a World Cup-record 20 3-pointers, Japan was just 3-for-27 from behind the arc. Two of those makes came in the final 1:38 of the game.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know Japan shoots more 3s than 2s, so we took away the 3,\u201d said German star Leonie Fiebich. \u201cOur goal was to be physical with them.\u201d<\/p>\n Frieda Buhner scored 19 points and Nyara Sabally added 18 for Germany (1-1).<\/p>\n Kokoro Tanaka led Japan (1-1) with 15 points.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n All four teams in Group A are tied at 1-1.<\/p>\n Hungary holds off Nigeria for first World Cup win in 28 years<\/p>\n Dorka Juhasz had 19 points and 16 rebounds to help Hungary edge Nigeria 71-67.<\/p>\n Nigeria (0-2) was down 66-52 with 3:57 left before getting within two with 3 seconds left on Elizabeth Balogun’s basket. Nigeria fouled Reka Lelik with just over a second left and she calmly knocked down both free throws to seal the win.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n It was Hungary’s first victory since 1998 when the team topped China in the quarterfinals. Now they’ll play Korea next to close out pool play.<\/p>\n Virag Takacs-Kiss added 17 points for Hungary (1-1). Juhasz, who plays for the Minnesota Lynx, had 13 points and 11 rebounds in the first half.<\/p>\n Amy Okonkwo scored 17 points to lead Nigeria, which finishes off pool play against France.<\/p>\n France recovers from rough first quarter to rout South Korea<\/p>\n Marine Johannes scored 14 of her 17 points in the first half as France rallied from a slow start to beat South Korea 95-69 in the final game of the day.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n South Korea (1-1) got off to a hot start and led 31-24 after the first quarter. Then Johannes and France got going, scoring the first 14 points of the second quarter. Johannes had nine of those as the French (2-0) led 43-37 at the half.<\/p>\n France put the game away at the start of the third quarter with a 24-4 run dominated by Dominique Malonga and Gabby Williams. Malonga had 10 points and Williams nine during that spurt.<\/p>\n South Korea could never recover.<\/p>\n Malonga and Williams each finished with 14 points.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \n See AP\u2019s full WNBA coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mali’s Sika Kone vies for the ball with Spain’s Maite Cazorla, left, during the women’s World Cup basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30400,30327,30399,30401,30405,556,30440,30333,865,1095,30403,28969,30332,30331,1561,1562,1558,1559,9506,30381,17],"class_list":["post-81451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-amy-okonkwo","tag-dominique-malonga","tag-dorka-juhasz","tag-elizabeth-balogun","tag-fiba-world-cup","tag-france","tag-frieda-buhner","tag-gabrielle-williams","tag-germany","tag-hungary","tag-iyana-martin","tag-mali","tag-marine-johannes","tag-nyara-sabally","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-senegal","tag-sika-kone","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81451","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=81451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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