MUNICH (Germany) - There's a reason they were ranked #1 in the Power Rankings. France were in control from start to finish in Brest, picking up a comfy win over Croatia to start their Qualifiers campaign.

It finished 73-61, France joining Bosnia and Herzegovina in the top half of the group standings, while Croatia joined Cyprus in the bottom half of this pool.

Turning point: France took control of the game early on in the second quarter, but could not seal the deal against a stubborn Croatian side until the final two minutes.

Croatia were down by seven when Jaleen Smith made his layup with two minutes to play, but Andrew Albicy, Matthew Strazel and Guerschon Yabusele made sure there were no upsets the rest of the way.

Game hero: Although Strazel was amazing off the bench with 12 points in 18 minutes, it was Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot who led the charge throughout the game, finishing with a team-high 15 points. France were a +21 team in his 28 minutes of work.

Stats don't lie: Defense does the job for coach Collet. Croatia were held to 22-of-59 from the field, 7-of-26 from beyond the arc, and they turned the ball over 19 times, paving the way to 25 points from turnovers for France.

Bottom line: Coach Vincent Collet enjoyed this one, balancing out the minutes to 11 different players, keeping some freshness on board for the flight to Bosnia and Herzegovina. France take on BIH in one of the toughest home courts in Europe, in a packed Mejdan arena in Tuzla, they will need every ounce of energy to go to 2-0.

With Cyprus in this group, Croatia know they have to edge out either France or BIH to advance, meaning they had a mission to close the gap as much as possible when it was obvious they would lose the game. They failed to do so, France won the last two minutes by 6 points, handing Josip Sesar a double digit defeat.

Mario Hezonja put on a one-man show for Croatia, scoring 22 of their 61 points on the night, including a number of plays which drew "oohs" and "ahhs" even from the home crowd in France. Hezonja gets to do it again on Monday, but this time in front of his fans in Rijeka, against Cyprus.

They said:

FIBA