PLOIESTI (Romania) - Romania needed a 14-point win and had a couple of chances to reach the gap, but could not convert them, allowing the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to take the tiebreaker, despite a 65-53 defeat. MKD win the group.

Turning Point: To find the turning point of this one, we have to go back to September 2018. MKD won the first matchup by 14 points, 90-76, making this an uphill battle for Romania from start to finish. And the hosts got a chance to catch MKD on Thursday after Giordan Watson knocked down his only three-pointer of the day, to make it a 13-point game in the final minute.

But after Vojdan Stojanovski missed a two-pointer for MKD, Watson missed a transition three-pointer to take the tiebreaker lead. Richard Hendrix split a pair of free throws to make it a 12-point game with six seconds left, but Romania took too long to get the ball in the frontcourt, taking the last shot after the buzzer, leaving the capacity crowd in Ploiesti with mixed emotions - they got the win, but they failed to advance.

Stats Don't Lie: Romania held MKD to 35 percent shooting from the field, but had an off night at the other end of the floor, shooting an even worse 34 percent.

Game Hero: Since MKD were the ones to celebrate despite a defeat, it only seems fair to pick one of their players as the game hero. And Bojan Trajkovski was far from his best with 5 points on 2-of-10 shooting, and 6 rebounds, but his only offensive rebound of the game led to two of his five points which kept MKD alive when Romania had their best run late in the game. Not only that, but Trajkovski also collected a steal on the next Romanian possession, taking the air out of the building heading to the final minute.

Game Notes: MKD will win the group at 3-1, no matter what happens on the last gameday when Romania travel to Kosovo. While MKD have booked their tickets to the FIBA EuroBasket 2021 Qualifiers, Romania and Kosovo get another chance in the FIBA EuroBasket Pre-Qualifiers Third Round, which will be played this summer.

They Said: "We were very naive at the end of the game in Skopje, and that cost us (tonight). We won by 12 points and we had the chance to increase the difference. Anyway, we won, but we did not qualify from the first position of Group B. But this victory is important for the confidence of the players and for us. It is important for what we want to build in the long run with our young players. Many thanks to our fans, we had an admirable audience, and the players fought until they were exhausted on the court to get the victory." - Tudor Costescu, Romania head coach

"We are very happy with this victory and we thank our fans for their support. It was a magnificent crowd. I'm sorry that we did not manage to get the 14 points difference from the game in Skopje, but it's important for us to keep going. We still have another game in Prishtina in a few days, and then the August Pre-Qualifiers games. We have to learn from all mistakes that we made in this night. We made some mistakes in the important moments and that cost us. But it is very important to move on!" - Rolland Torok, Romania

"It was a hard and a terrible game. Both team played very good defense, but we have a terrible offense. The game was very important for the qualification from the first place, and probably that's why the players missed a lot (of shots). But they gave everything on the court. At the end, we didn't win, but we take it about for what we came here: the qualification for the next round." - Jordanco Davitkov, MKD head coach

"Tough game for us, but I think that we were lucky in the end of game. It was important for us because we got the qualification. We didn't play very well in offense, we missed a lot of shots, but we played very good defense and the home team scored only 65 points. On the other hand, it was a good game for Romania team, they play very well, but in the end we managed to protect our 14-point home game advantage. I'm happy for this. Also, it was a very good atmosphere and a wonderful crowd." - Dimitar Karadjovski, MKD

FIBA