The South Korean women’s basketball team failed to reach the final of the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games after losing to Japan. South Korea lost 58-81 to Japan in the women’s basketball quarterfinals on Wednesday at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China .The Koreans will play North Korea for the bronze medal on Friday at 5 p.m. ET.South Korea and North Korea met once in the group stage of the tournament, with South Korea winning 81-62. Japan is a world-class team that has been in recent form, winning a silver medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Japan is ranked No. 9 in the FIBA world rankings, while South Korea is No. 13.Unlike the men’s team, which fielded a virtually second-string squad, the women’s team brought back seven of the 12 players from the silver medal team at the Tokyo Olympics to the Asian Games. Down 15-20 after the first quarter, South Korea quickly fell behind 15-29 after Japan hit three straight 3-pointers to start the second quarter. Japan then went on a 33-15 run that included two free throws by Hoshi Anri and a basket by Akaho Himawari. Korea chipped away at the deficit and ended the half with a 33-40 lead .At the beginning of the third quarter, Korea made a push to close the gap to five points, 35-40, on a mid-range shot by Park Ji-soo (KB), but once again, Japan’s high-sensitivity three-point shooting put a damper on Korea’s momentum .Maki Takada’s two baskets pushed Japan’s lead back to seven points, and then Hayashi Saki and Takada hit back-to-back three-pointers to make it 48-35.After Korea cut the deficit to 50-41, Japan answered again, this time with two 3-pointers from mixed-race Nigerian player Monica Okoye and Saori Miyazaki to extend the lead to 15 points. By the end of the third quarter, Japan had 10 three-pointers and Korea had two .At the start of the fourth quarter, Kim Dan-bi (Woori Bank) hit Korea’s third three-pointer of the day to cut the lead to 47-58, but Japan answered with another three-pointer from Takada. Korea was led by Park Ji-soo with 18 points and nine rebounds, while Park Ji-hyun (Woori Bank) added 13 points .Korea was completely outclassed from three-point range (3-14) and 온라인카지노 committed twice as many turnovers as Japan (14-7).