“Run!” Park Soo-ho’s voice echoed through Incheon Dowon Gymnasium. The women’s national team is back in action after last year’s heartbreak.
On Tuesday, the Korean women’s national basketball team, led by head coach Park Soo-ho, began intensified training at Incheon Dowon Gymnasium to prepare for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2026 qualifiers. The team will continue to train at Incheon Dowon Gymnasium until the 20th of this month, and will then continue training at the SK Practice Gym in Seoul and Samsung Practice Gym in Seoul.
Park headed to the gym with a file containing numerous diagrams of transitions, hedges, 2-3 zone defenses, and more. “I have to prepare like this because I can forget things (laughs). Coach Yang Ji-hee helped me a lot during the preparation.” 안전놀이터 Park said.
The qualifiers will be held in Mexico City, Mexico and Kigali, Rwanda, with eight countries from each region competing. After a group stage and a quarterfinal tournament, only the top-ranked team from each region will advance to the final round. The team has been drawn with Mali, the Czech Republic, and Venezuela in Group A in Mexico City. In Group B, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, and Mozambique will compete.
FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2026 Preliminary Round Mexico City Regional Groupings * FIBA Ranking in parentheses
Group A: South Korea (13th), Mali (20th), Czech Republic (23rd), Venezuela (36th)
Group B: Mexico (45th), Montenegro (22nd), New Zealand (26th), Mozambique (33rd)
Despite having the highest FIBA ranking among the eight nations, Park expressed caution. “I’ve been watching and analyzing recent games and there are no teams that I can take lightly. Mali and the Czech Republic are very physical teams. Venezuela is the same, but they seem to be less organized than other teams.” Park says.
Park is no stranger to the sport, having coached Suwon Girls’ Middle School and Suwon Girls’ High School in the 2000s, and recently taking over as coach of Bundang Management High School. With the U19 national team, he led them to a record-breaking ninth place finish at the 2019 U19 Women’s Basketball World Cup.
“I’ve beaten teams from South America, Africa, and Europe when I was a youth national team coach,” Park says. I think that experience will help us. It won’t be easy right now, but the ultimate goal is to beat a North American team one day,” Park said.
The team will focus on improving their conditioning through weight training, team drills, and other activities instead of practicing for the time being. The team will also hold joint training sessions with male high school players in the Incheon area. This is to improve their adaptability before facing more physically fit players.
“You may call me arrogant, but I trained the Bundang Business High School and the youth national team as ‘international’ players. You can’t train for ‘domestic’. You have to train as if your opponent is bigger than you. I’m still trying to attack easily because of my habits, but I think I’ll get better if I train with high school players,” he said.
