Ukraine suffered a second defeat at EuroBasket 2022
Head coach of the Ukrainian national team Ainars Bagatskis commented on the defeat Croatia (85:90) in the match of the last round of the group stage EuroBasket 2022.
“My opinion is that Croatia showed their best basketball in the entire tournament, even taking into account the match against Greece. Of course they played like a big, smart team. As for us, no one thought about the difference in points, we tried to focus on winning, because that’s the most important thing when you play basketball.”
“Missing 45 points before the break is too much. We scored 42. It all depends on the defense. But in the first half they scored 17 points after our losses. In the second half, we did a lot of work in this aspect and corrected, but did not convert many open three-pointers, open shots from shooters. We are glad that we finished with such a difference in points, it is important for us. Now we must forget it as soon as possible.”
“An opponent in the 1/8 finals? I always say that it doesn’t matter who we play against. In the locker room, I told the guys that it didn’t matter even if the Chicago Bulls came up against us. We must focus on our basketball. We did a good job in the group stage. I believe that with every match we showed that we are only getting better and better.”
Losing to Croatia, Bagatskis’ team suffered a second defeat at EuroBasket 2022. Earlier, the blue-yellows lost to Greece (79:99). Ukraine also has victories over Estonia (74:73), Great Britain (90:61) and Italy (84:73).
Ukraine ranks third in Group C, but if Italy wins over Great Britain, Bagatskis’ team will rise to second position. Note that the blue-and-yellows reached the 1/8 finals of EuroBasket.
Source: Sportarena
