FIBA U19 – Day Five Review

RIGA (2011 FIBA U19 World Championship) – While the first day of the Eighth-Quarter finals threw up a number of intense battles, none would come close to competing with Lithuania-USA round two which highlighted day five action.

On the first day of the Eighth-Quarter finals Egypt were able to provide what was arguably the match of the day but there would be no repeat a morning later as the Canadians easily accounted for the African champions to keep their hopes of advancing from Group F to the quarter finals alive.

On any other day, a match-up between old rivals Serbia and Croatia in any sport would be worthy of being dubbed as the main event but on Tuesday the Balkan nations had to settle for providing the curtain-raiser. As expected the game was headed for a tight finish, only for Aleksander Cvetkovic to enter the fray and show why he is considered one of the best young talent’s in Europe, providing some crucial late points to get the Serbs home.

The main game of the day did not fail to live up to its billing as USA and Lithuania provided the match of the tournament to date. Having played a friendly game in Lithuania prior to the commencement of the World Championship, Lithuania quickly established themselves as one of the frontrunners to knock USA of the top mantle of junior men’s basketball by easily winning that encounter. On Tuesday however, USA were making it look they may have just been suffering from a bad case of jet lag as Jeremy Lamb pushed the USA out to a 19 point lead. Lithuania, however who were without the services of starting point guard Vytenis Cizauskas were not about to lie down, fighting their way back to send the game into an unlikely overtime. But having done the hard work, the Lithuanians were left disappointed as Patric Young piled on seven quick points to seal the game for the USA. With the win USA remain the only undefeated team in the tournament and now guarantee their place in the final eight.

After averaging a tournament high 23.2 points across his first four games in Latvia, it was little wonder that Anthony Drmic found himself to be a marked man when his Australia lined up against Brazil. But while the Brazilians were busy containing Drmic to two points, his team mates were taking over the scoring duties to make sure Australia would remain at the top of Group E and confirm their place in the quarter finals.

To date Australia has only lost one game in Latvia, tripping up in their second group B match against hosts Latvia. But since that game, the two teams journeys have taken very different paths. While Australia has gone from strength to strength winning their three subsequent encounters, Latvia’s tournament has entered a downward spiral with their second group E loss to Poland on Tuesday leaving them on the edge of elimination. It was all good news for Poland however who are now guaranteed a quarter final spot alongside Australia.

The final match of day five provided intrigue of a different kind as the two underperforming teams of the tournament in Argentina and Russia came up against each other with both looking for their first win of the second round. Running out to a 19 point lead in the first half, the game looked to be a done deal for Argentina against a Russian team lacking any direction. But following halftime, the direction came as the Russians fought back to be leading by as much as five points in the final stages. The moment proved to big however for the young Russians with Argentina showing stronger nerves under pressure, coming back to confirm their spot in the final eight and in doing so sealing the fate of host nation Latvia.

FIBA