France claimed a close win over Germany 78-74 at the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre on September 1 to bring the curtain down on the first round of group-stage games in the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. So, what are the takeaways from the 16 games?

For starters, European and American teams maintained their advantage in the sport. Of the teams from these two continents that played against opponents from other continents, only the Czech Republic and Canada lost to the USA and Australia respectively. Teams like Lithuania, Serbia and Italy have all dominated the game.

By contrast, of all five Asian teams, only China claimed victory. Iran had the chance to defeat Puerto Rico but were one buzzer-beater away from the final win. All five African teams lost their first game, too.

Italy and Australia shared the highest score of 108 points. The other four teams that scored over 100 points were Serbia (105), Brazil (102), Spain (101) and Lithuania (101). Lithuania created another two records in their big win over Senegal: the biggest score difference (54 points) and the lowest point allowed (47). The fewest half-game points came from Montenegro, which had only 16 points under the defense of Greece. The lowest single-quarter score went to Germany, which only got four points in the first quarter in their game against France. Germany only lost by four points (78-74) in that game, so if they had done even a little a bit better, they would have won.

South Korea though suffered a painful loss against Argentina (95-69), the Asian team shared the highest rebounds (49) with Brazil and grabbed more offensive ones (18-15) than the latter. However, South Korea were not the best offensive rebounding team; Cote d'Ivoire were with 19 rebounds on the offensive glass.

Serbia, Spain and Italy were the top three teams in assisting, with 32, 31 and 30 respectively. Italy committed the fewest turnovers (10) among the three, but Argentina had the best AST/TO number (3.3) as they delivered 23 assists but only committed seven turnovers.

As for player statistics, Ahmad Al Dwairi of Jordan scored the highest with 34 points, followed by Puerto Rico's David Huertas (32) and South Korea's Guna Ra (Ricardo Ratliffe) (31). Ten players had double-digit rebounds in the first game. Iran's Hamed Haddadi got the highest (16), but Brazil's Cristiano Felicio defeated him on the offensive glass (8-5). Evan Fournier of France was the only non-big-man who also grabbed 10 rebounds.

Three orchestrators, Joe Ingles of Australia, Stefan Jovic of Serbia and Ricky Rubio of Spain led the assisting board with nine assists. Ingles had three turnovers; Rubio had only one, and Jovic committed none.