ARG/FRA - Laprovittola lifts Argentina to victory

AUCKLAND (FIBA U19 World Championship) - Little used Argentine guard Nicola¡s Laprovittola has propelled his team into the playoff for 5th position at the FIBA U19 World Championship with some clutch fourth quarter shooting.

Laprovittola’s three triples in 1:20 and two important free throws helped Argentina from a 73-75 deficit to a 85-78 lead with 2:38 to play.

When France closed to 85-82, Laprovittola found Matias Nocedal wide open, who nailed the three point shot to seal the win. The final score was 92-84.

France hit the court running to start the game, taking a 20-10 lead with a Christophe Leonard three pointer near the end of the first period.

While Argentina closed to within 7 points at the first break with a buzzer beater from Fabian Ramarez Barrios, Leonard took over and scored 7 points in the first 3:26 of the second term as France established a 31-17 advantage.

French coach Richard Billant then went to his bench and Argentina used the opportunity to close the gap to 44-38 at half time, with Nocedal scoring 6 points in 1:16 to spark his side.

Andrew Albicy fed Landing Sane on consecutive fast breaks and converted one of his own to give the French 50-42 lead after two minutes of the third period, but back-to-back triples from Juan Fernandez brought Argentina back to 48-50.

France restored their lead to 5 points at three quarter time, before a long three from Luciano Gonzalez and back to back baskets from Andres Landoni to start the final term saw the South Americans take the lead.

Both teams traded baskets until Laprovittola proved the difference.

Albicy (24 points, 6 assists, 4 steals) and Leonard (17 points, 7 rebounds) were the best for France, while Nocedal (20 points), Landoni (15 points, 6 rebounds), Laprovittola and Fernandez (both 14 points) were all strong contributors for Argentina.


They said :

Juan Fernandez, Argentina captain :

“After we lose yesterday we keep in mind that the best we can do here is to get the fifth spot. We’re not going to give anything easy, we want to get that fifth place. Everyone wants to be in the semi finals but that’s what we get now, so we go out and play for it.

(Laprovittola) is a great player. He hasn’t been having many minutes in the tournament, we have on our team three point guards. He stepped up great, if it hadn’t been for his shots I know what would have happened.

Everyone has to be ready to play, even the ones who haven’t played for the whole tournament.

They’re quick and they can shoot. Number six is very fast, it was hard for me to defend him. Number 4 and number 9, and number 10 too, the big guy, they can all shoot from the outside. We knew it was going to be tough today, but we stepped up and we took the game.”


Richard Billant, France coach :

“I am very disappointed about the defence, 92 points is too much. We have an average of 70-73 points, so today was 20 points more. I know that everyone’s tired but you have to make the effort to defend better.

We had to try a triangle and two. We need to play man on man against these guys but for some reason it was not possible because some players were not concentrating.

The game yesterday was very close, we played very well. We played great defence against Australia yesterday, they scored less than 80 points. Maybe we played today still with the thoughts of yesterday.

Now we have to regroup the team to fight tomorrow, because we wanted to finish fifth. Now that is not possible, we want to finish seventh.”

FIBA