U18 national team head coach Pēteris Ozoliņš Photo: FIBA
The Latvian U18 basketball team on Tuesday in the first game of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) “Challengers” tournament acknowledged the superiority of its Slovenian peers. The game in the Turkish city of Konya ended in 84:44 (17:15, 10:21, 18: 6, 30:11) in favor of Slovenia.
Although the first points were scored by the young Slovenian basketball players, the Latvian national team quickly started to play and took the lead with 9: 4, but the Slovenian national team recovered and equalized the result 9: 9. Next, a quarter went similarly and at the end of it Latvia had a two-point advantage. The Latvian side started the second quarter more successfully, taking the lead even with 25:20, however, then the Slovenian juniors increased their pressure on the field and at the end of the quarter they were already in the lead with 36:27. The Latvian national team scored only two points in the last minutes of the quarter.
In the third quarter, the Slovenian team continued to increase its lead, and only in the middle of the quarter did the Latvian national team score two points, scoring two more points two minutes before the end of the quarter, and Christopher Carlson threw two more points in the last second before the end of the quarter. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Slovenian national team earned a number of free throws, which were also successfully completed. In the middle of the quarter, two free throws were not taken by Rihards Teirumnieks, but soon after, a successful three-point shot was taken by Valters Briedis, who activated the Latvian team, but failed to regain the loss.
U18 juniors (2003/2004) led by Pēteris Ozoliņš will participate in a group C tournament in Konja, Turkey, until August 8, where the Latvian team will play with Russian, Turkish, Slovenian, Polish and Czech teams. Latvian young basketball players have to play with the Czech national team on Wednesday, with the Russian national team on Thursday, with the Turkish national team of U18 basketball on Saturday and on Sunday. On Tuesday, Russia defeated the Czech Republic with 66:48 and Turkey defeated Poland with 81:74.
Due to the constraints caused by the pandemic, the Board of the International Basketball Federation’s European Zone (FIBAEurope) canceled the 2021 European Youth Championships. In order to ensure the practice of games, an informal competition series is organized – FIBA “Challengers”. In the U18 age group, the 18 best teams in the European ranking table were divided into three top six. Tournaments take place in Skopje, Northern Macedonia, Tel Aviv, Israel and Konya, Turkey. The best teams in each tournament will receive prizes, the results will not affect the countries’ positions in the official FIBA youth team ranking.
The LBS Coaches Commission considered the participation of Latvian teams in five FIBA “Challengers” tournaments to be purposeful. The U20 men’s team was not entered, as some of the candidates are already included in professional clubs and some participated in the U19 World Cup.
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