Victory in the war will allow Ukraine to develop in basketball – Bagatskis

The head coach of the Ukrainian national team was satisfied with the performance of his players in the lost match against Italy.

Ainars Bagatskis was happy with the performance of the Ukrainian national team in the qualifying match against the Italian team. Also, the head coach of the “blue-yellows” noted the atmosphere on the site and in the hall, where the fans supported the Ukrainians, despite the guest status of the match.

“First of all, I want to say that I enjoyed the game. I had the best position on the court. The hall, of course, was for Italy, but I enjoyed the atmosphere on the court.

As I said before the match, the most important thing is the desire to fight for all 40 minutes. We played against Italy twice last summer, and for 16 minutes in the matches against them we showed high quality basketball. Today we had ups and downs. When we played well, not rushing into decisions, forcing Italy to play in the half of the court, everything went well for us. But we lost focus in some attacking situations. The Italians punished us quickly on fast breaks and turned our losses into points. This is the main point. Sometimes the most important thing is not to just lose the ball, and sometimes the best pass is a shot, after that you have to go back to the defense.

I have lived in Ukraine for 7 years and I feel like a Ukrainian. But I can’t feel how the Ukrainian players feel about the war. Today the Italian fans really supported us and it was a special feeling. But that was before the game, and there were no friends in the match. However, thank you very much for supporting Ukraine.

I enjoy working with these guys. As for my contract, I don’t want to say anything. During my work in the Ukrainian national team, there was a change of generations. We will have the final say in the match against the Netherlands in Riga and after that we can discuss the contract situation.

My idea from the first day with the Ukrainian national team was to attract new players, young players, young talents. Every time we get a chance to practice in the summer, we add new basketball players to the roster. All the best Ukrainian basketball players were in the game and got playing time, including debutant Oleksandr Kovlyar. With his work attitude, he has a bright future in the national team. Another player I would like to work with is Maxim Shulga. He is now playing in the States and he will be next. So there are talents, and, in my opinion, basketball in Ukraine is constantly moving forward. We have to win the war and keep improving,” Bagatskis said at the post-match press conference.

Recall that the Ukrainian team lost to the Italian team in qualifying for the World Basketball Championship and lost the opportunity to enter the main round of the tournament.

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