Defeat for GB
Seventh place is now the best Great Britain can hope for in the women's wheelchair basketball.
Last Updated: 06/09/12 2:44pm
Seventh place is now the best Great Britain can hope for in the women's wheelchair basketball after they suffered a comprehensive defeat at the hands of China in Thursday's classification round.
China led throughout as Cheng Haizhen scored 19 points and Long Yun added 18.
Britain, led by 22 points from Helen Freeman, will now face Mexico on Friday morning for seventh, which while well short of their targets here in London, would still represent an improvement over their eighth-place finish in Beijing four years ago.
However, that seemed of little consolation to the players after this latest defeat, Britain's fifth in six games during the London Paralympics.
Simple
"We needed to come out fighting," said Freeman. "We didn't bring what we needed to bring today, so they won, simple as that.
"It's a combination of a number of things, but at the end of the day if you don't put the easy shots in and the other team does, it doesn't matter how well you play on the rest of the floor.
"They played how they play, we didn't live up to our potential and in a competition this strong if you don't play as good as you can you're not going to win."
Coach Garry Peel added: "It was very disappointing. We felt the defence would take over today and stop this team.
"We knew they would come out hard and fast, but the defence we showed against Germany just wasn't there today and that's frightening for us because that's usually our strong point. We just didn't have it today.
"We got a bit soft on them. The game plan was to be in their faces and make them work hard, but we didn't do it."
Peel admitted his team had felt flat prior to tip off and he had not been able to get them going.
"The changing room was very quiet, and I felt I wasn't lifting them," he said. "I don't know what went wrong, but I'll find out.
"We had to come out against this time really fired up and we didn't.
"It's still important for us to come seventh; we don't want to be eighth whatever happens.
"But our goal was top four, and maybe fifth if we struggled, so we're disappointed. This is a young team, and we will have to rebuild."
Beijing
Freeman admitted the team had failed to play to their potential in London, and said she was now determined to get seventh to at least show some progression since Beijing.
"It's very important," she said of Friday's game.
"We know if we play properly we're miles better than Mexico so we're just going to fight for that now.
"We're going to keep our heads high, take the positives out of what we've done, and be ready for tomorrow."