FIBA U19 - Day six review

RIGA (FIBA U19 World Championship) – At the beginning of Wednesday, four teams had already booked their places in the FIBA U19 World Championship Quarter Finals. Six games later only eight remain.
 
Egypt’s chances of going through to the final eight had already evaporated on Tuesday but that did not mean they would not give it their all when they took to the court to play Lithuania on Wednesday morning. Lithuania however was in a different class, doing it easy even without starting point guard Vytenis Cizauskas.
 
One team who still fancied their chances of advancing to the final eight was Canada but to so they needed to get past a Serbian side that has been going about their work quietly thus far in the tournament. While they may have been keeping quiet it did not mean they were not being effective as they put in another flawless no fuss effort, ending Canada’s tournament.
 
Serbia’s Balkan neighbors Croatia could not be playing in bigger contrast to the Serbs, providing the most noise in Latvia to date. From the highs of beating Lithuania to the lows of losing to Korea, the Croatian roller coaster was about to hit its biggest high as Toni Katic led his team to a historic victory over a USA team who looked like they were already dreaming of the quarterfinals.
 
With Croatia’s victory they were able claim second spot in Group F ahead of Lithuania, creating a potentially tough quarterfinal prospect for the loser of the day’s next game between Australia and Poland. But thanks to Jackson Aldridge it was not an issue that the Australians needed to contemplate as Australia went on to easily beat an experimental Polish side by 20 points.
 
Latvia’s tournament may have already been over but with their next opponents up being Russia there was still plenty to play for against their old foes. For Russia, it was a matter of winning to remain a chance off making the final eight. Early on however, it did not appear that Russia was playing for their place in the tournament, allowing the Latvians to run out a 12 point lead. In fact it would take a miraculous individual final quarter performance from Captain Alexander Varnakov to get them over the line, keeping them in the tournament for at least another 40 minutes as they nervously awaited to see if Argentina could beat Brazil.
 
But when those 40 minutes were up, Russia were no closer to knowing their fate with Brazil opting to go against the wise words of Coach Jose Alves Neto, allowing Argentinean Luciano Masserelli to shoot on the buzzer instead of fouling him. It would prove to be one of the most crucial mistakes of their young careers with the three point attempt sailing through the net, sending the game into overtime. Argentina then took control of the game for the first time, leading throughout overtime to seal the fate of Brazil and assist Russia into the second round. Although finishing on the same points as Brazil, the Russian go through ahead of the South Americans on account of beating them on the buzzer in the side’s opening game of the tournament.

FIBA