Women’s Basketball World Cup

stats at a glance

Berlin · September 4–13, 2026

🇯🇵

JPN

Japan

Group A

World Cup appearances

Best: Runners-up (1975)

Olympic appearances

Best: Runners-up (2020)

How they qualified

Qualifier

Istanbul tournament →

Japan won silver at the Tokyo Olympics, the first Olympic basketball medal in the country's history, men's or women's. Their coach is American: Corey Gaines won the 2009 WNBA championship with the Phoenix Mercury and has worked in Japanese basketball since 1998.

Head coach

Corey Gaines

American. Head coach of the Phoenix Mercury, winning the 2009 WNBA championship. Former NBA player; came to Japan in 1998 as a player and has been involved with the Japanese program since 2009.

WNBA connection — 1 current player

Player	Pos	WNBA team
Mai Yamamoto	G	LVA Las Vegas Aces

Also: Ramu Tokashiki (former, SEA), Rui Machida (former, WAS), Kokoro Tanaka (drafted, GSV).

Roster — provisional — 16-player pool

FIBA has published a 16-name pool; the individual names are not yet available.

A pool, not a squad — it will be cut to 12 before the tournament. Nothing here should be read as a confirmed selection.

Group A fixtures

Fri 4 Sep	vs	🇲🇱 Mali	05:30 ET 11:30 CEST
Sat 5 Sep	vs	🇩🇪 Germany	12:00 ET 18:00 CEST
Mon 7 Sep	vs	🇪🇸 Spain	11:50 ET 17:50 CEST