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Japan Departs FIBA World Cup, But With New Found Respect

Related Topics: FuBA Basketball World Cup

As always, there are some great storylines in the FIBA World Cup: France flames out. The Australians keep flirting with disaster. The young American team is coming together fast - but so are the Canadians. South Sudan has a rising star - a 16-year-old! And Japan knocked off a World Cup opponent for the first time in decades. And for the first time ever on Sunday, Japan knocked off a European team.

To be fair, Finland isn’t Spain or Greece or France (of course, lately France isn’t really France either).

But it’s a huge deal for the Japanese, who had not won a World Cup game in 17 years and that one was against Panama.