Here is an article on an analysis of the FIBA World's
It appears not much to worry about for the US
Other medalist hopefuls seem to be China, Japan and Home Australia. No Belgium. France, Cabada mentioned?
SYDNEY (Australia) – As excitement builds ahead of the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022, we check in with an expert panel to get their predictions for the flagship event.
www.fiba.basketball
The United States is far from the only team with questions marks for this tournament.
Belgium has a new coach and the old coach had two daughters on the team who have not played since the change. Their two most important players have basically missed all of their training camp time.
Bosnia was not very deep to start with, but they are dealing with absences of key players, and of course have no idea when Jonquel Jones can show up and play. Their federation was not even sure that they would have the money to send this team to Australia or have their men's team make it to EuroBasket, but at least figured that part out before the two tournaments.
China is probably the team with the closest to their ideal roster and they have practiced together the most, but they seem to fall short every time they have a chance to get to the next level.
Puerto Rico has a fairly strong roster given the players at their disposal, but it is less talented than the majority of the rest of the teams, having not qualified on results. Their veterans are pretty much out of the picture now and the balance of the roster has shifted from players who have spent nearly all of their lives on the island to players who were born on or spent most of their lives on the mainland, some of whom only have one parent or grandparent with roots on the island, which has historically caused some friction and motivation issues.
South Korea is missing two starters, including their best player.
Australia has not played well in competitive settings for a while even if there are bigger hopes with their roster. Their point guard situation is completely up in the air.
Canada's roster is in major transition as they try to have their younger players grow into the situation. They have managed to get a reasonable amount of practice together at least, especially with a new coach.
France's roster is depleted. Also, their fans had wanted a new coach for a while to shake things up a bit, but the federation seemed to take that as an insult and named a coach that seems to not be quite the right person for the post and his first competitive games have been very rough.
Japan has had a lot of unexpected roster turnover, but their new coach did manage to steer them to a continental championship. At this point, they are less likely to be able to just sneak up on people though.
Mali already had a weaker roster than pretty much everyone having backed into the last spot in the tournament, but the men's national team had a strike over financial arrangements and the dispute is spilling into this team's composition as well.
Serbia had their two longtime leaders retire last year and are missing more players now. The team has depth, but it is not really clear who will step into the leadership void on the big stage.
