In this tournament, among the twenty best teams on the planet, we will also see the Lithuanian youth national team, which earned a place in the competition in the most convincing way possible. Both the U23 and U21 Lithuanian national teams won their conferences in the League of Nations, which became a selection for the World Championship. True, the rules of the tournament allow one country to have only one team.
This time, the Lithuanian quartet will consist of the trio who played in the U23 national team – Tito Januševičius, Gabrielias Čelkas, Augustinas Mikštas – and the U21 team leader Rokos Jocios. This foursome is coached by David Kumel.
T. Januševičius and G. Čelka are going to the world championships just a couple of weeks after their bronze-medal run at the European Men’s Championship. Not only that, T. Januševičius presented himself in the big trio basketball by becoming the most productive player of the championship (42 points, average 8.4 per game) and earning a place in the symbolic team.
For this duo and A. Mikšta, this will be the last dance in youth basketball before fully immersing themselves in men’s battles for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics cycle.
Only G. Čelka from this trio has won a medal in youth basketball – in 2019. with the gold won at the U18 European Championship. Although all the young people have won medals while representing Vytautas the Great University (VDU), they could not do so while wearing the shirts of the Lithuanian national team.
The 20-year-old R. Jocys, on the other hand, has a bright record in his so far short CV – in 2022, he led the U18 national team to third place in the world, at the same time entering the symbolic top three of the tournament. In Ulaanbaatar, our team will start their journey in Group D, where they will have to fight against the national teams of Latvia, Chile, USA and Kenya.
September 12 (Thursday) 7:40 a.m. Lithuania faces a challenge from Latvians, and at 10:40 a.m. – a duel with the Americans. September 14 (Saturday) 7:40 a.m. the confrontation with the Chileans will begin, and at 10:40 a.m. the group stage will end with a match against representatives of Kenya.
The top two teams from the group will advance to the quarter-finals, which, like the semi-finals and finals, will take place on September 15. (on Sunday). In the quarter-finals, one of the teams from group B – China, the Netherlands, Mongolia, Japan or Benin – would await the Lithuanians.
Before the tournament, Lithuania was ranked as the fourth team – ahead of the national teams of France, China and Germany.
2024-09-10 07:45:13