was replaced in April 2017 by former Opals player and Phoenix Mercury head coach, Sandy Brondello. Unlike previous years, the Opals qualified for the 2018 World Cup through the FIBA Women's Asia Cup held in India where they won a silver medal. Kelsey Griffin was named tournament most valuable player. With basketball returning to the Commonwealth Games for the first time since 2006, the Opals easily accounted for England in the final winning the gold-medal game 99–55. At the 2018 World Cup held in Spain, the Opals led their group with a 3–0 record. They then defeated China 83–42 in the quarter-final and Spain 72–66 in the semi-final to set up a gold-medal final with their long-time rivals USA. The Opals lost the game 73–56 with head coach Sandy Brondello stating a lack of offence proved their downfall. Liz Cambage led the tournament scoring with an average of 23.8 points per game and was named to the All-Star Five. Competitive record Olympic Games Women's basketball was introduced as an Olympic sport at Montreal in 1976. From 1976 to 1992, only six countries (teams) participated in the Olympic tournament. However, in 1996 at Atlanta the tournament was expanded to twelve teams. Through the 2016 Olympics, Australia qualified for the Olympic Games through competing in the FIBA Oceania Basketball Championship held each four years in the year preceding the games. Typically, this tournament featured either a two or three-game series between Australia and New Zealand. With the Oceania Championship having been discontinued after its 2015 edition, and FIBA having removed all women's continental championships except for EuroBasket Women from the Olympic qualification process in 2017, Australia will qualify for future Olympics through a two-stage process, starting with an Olympic pre-qualifying tournament involving Asian and Oceanian national teams in the year before the Olympics and followed by a worldwide Olympic qualifying tournament held in the year of the Games. World Cup The first official Women's World Cup, known as the Women's World Championship through its 2014 edition, was held in Chile in 1953. The tournament was expanded to 16 countries (teams) in 1990. Since 2017, Australia qualifies for the World Cup through competing in the FIBA Women's Asia Cup, held each four years in the year preceding the Women's World Cup. Before then, Australia qualified through the FIBA Oceania Championship. Typically, this tournament featured either a two or three-game series between Australia and