Wednesday links: FIBA Women's World Championships Quarterfinals set, Daisha Simmons' transfer troubles

We're coming to you with links a bit late today in order to catch up on who's advancing to the quarterfinals at the 2014 FIBA World Championships for Women in addition to rounding up some of the best links from the last day or so.

Aneela Syed has already gotten us caught up on Canada, so we'll start with the other FIBA scores and move on to the rest.

FIBA

• Julio Chitunda of SuperSport rounds up the day's scores and reported that "Chinese players were overcome with emotions" after advancing to the quarterfinals for the first time in over a decade with a win over Yelena Leuchanka and Belarus. China will face Atlanta Dream forward Sancho Lyttle and Spain in the next round. Read more >>>

• FIBA has recaps of the day's other two games: France handled Brazil rather easily and Serbia beat Cuba. See the scoreboard >>>

• Doug Smith of the Toronto Star described Canada's win over the Czech Republic today as "an accomplishment to be tremendously proud of" and quoted Team Canada's coach for some historical perspective.  "We're ecstatic to get to the top eight, the last time we got there was 1994, (but) as happy as we are with this win, we're carrying on business as usual, we've got a tough opponent in two days and we have to see what we can do here," coach Lisa Thomaidis said of the win that propels Canada into a quarter-final game Friday against Australia in Istanbul. Read more >>>

• Boti Nagy of The Advertiser summarized Australia's relatively smooth path to the quarterfinals despite a number of distractions leading up to the tournament, including Liz Cambage's injury. Defense has been a particular strength for the Opals: "it’s defence has been terrifying, holding opponents to 29 per cent shooting, smashing them on the boards 47-32 and forcing 20 turnovers while only coughing it up 13 times themselves, again testament to their effort to function as a unit." Read more >>>

• Mechelle Voepel of ESPN summarized Team USA's blowout of Angola focusing on what the reserves showed in their first chance for extended minutes: "They did all right. Sims, the Baylor graduate and No. 2 pick in the 2014 WNBA draft by the Tulsa Shock, had nine points, five rebounds and four assists. Stewart, the favorite to be national college player of the year this coming season, also had nine points, earning seven at the foul line. She added six rebounds. Both Sims and Stewart played 16 minutes, 27 seconds." Read more >>>

NCAA

• Jerry Carino of the Gannett New Jersey newspapers reported yesterday that Daisha Simmons continues to face obstacles in transferring from Alabama to Seton Hall despite the NCAA siding with her. It is yet another story of a program inexplicably blocking the transfer of a student-athlete. "Simmons and those around her do not consider it closed. They view it as Exhibit A of a broken-down system in need of reform." Read more >>>

• Jonathan Hawthorne of the Daily Emerald reports that new Oregon coach Kelly Graves is re-focusing the program on defense in the wake of the Paul Westhead era: "Everyone has really stepped up the defense, the talking and we are really meshing better as a whole as opposed to last year," Petersen said. Read more >>>

• Bill Pollock of the Nebraska Radio Network reports that, "The Nebraska women’s basketball team are close to setting records with the potential of 16 regular-season games being nationally televised...Nebraska has never had more than 11 regular-season games televised in a year, and the record for nationally televised games in a season is 15 (including conference and NCAA tournaments)." Read more >>>

WNBA

• Jayda Evans of the Seattle Times caught up with Seattle Storm guard Tanisha Wright, who offered Albert Lee some ammunition about team building: "In this league, it’s very visible, it’s very accurate to say the way you get better is by getting younger. You have to have some young talent. All of the teams that are good now is because they have young talent. That’s just the truth of the matter. " Read more >>>

• Justine Rodriguez of the Times Herald-Record reports that Washington Mystics center Stefanie Dolson chose to play in Russia this WNBA offseason instead of Turkey, Israel, or Hungary: "It was just the best deal. To be able to play in Russia in the Euro Cup will get me a lot of exposure and help my future chances. I'm just happy to be getting paid to do what I love to do. I don't want to sit at a desk all day. I get to travel the world and I'm going to take full advantage of it." Read more >>>

Got other links we should check out? Drop them in the comments or create a fanshot so we can promote it to the world.