2024-07-05 08:16:33
In Greece, Croatia, which had beaten Slovenia 108-92 the day before, lost to New Zealand 86-90 (29-28, 31-27, 19-19, 7-16), but secured a place in the semi-finals.
In the Croatian national team, Ivica Zubac collected 29 points and 16 rebounds, Dario Saric – 19 points, eight rebounds and five assists, Mario Hezonja – 16 points, nine rebounds and six assists, but the team’s leading scorer in Tuesday’s victory, Goran Filipovic, more than 25 and a half minutes remained scoreless.
Corey Webster scored 21 points, Shay Ili scored 18 points, and Aizeya Leaf scored 14 points for the winners. The New Zealanders won despite losing the battle for rebounds (31:43).
In the second game, host Greece beat the Dominican Republic 109:82 (25:15, 31:26, 24:24, 29:17) in the second group, which defeated Egypt 90:77 in the first match on Tuesday.
Yannis Adetokunbo stood out for the winners with 32 points, while Tomas Volkap scored 17 points. Christopher Duarte led the opponents with 26 points, hitting five of eight long-range shots.
In Piraeus, New Zealand will play Slovenia and Greece – Egypt on Thursday.
In Valencia, the first place in one of the subgroups was secured by the Bahamas, which after the victory on Tuesday over Finland (96:85), a day later also beat Poland with 90:81 (30:20, 20:18, 23:21, 17:22).
For the winners, Valdez Edgecombe had 21 points and six rebounds, DeAndre Ayton had 18 points and nine rebounds, and Buddy Hield had 17 points, six rebounds and ten assists.
Aleksander Balcerovski scored 22 points for Poland, while Jeremy Sochen had 16 points, ten rebounds and six fouls.
In the second sub-group, host Spain secured the first place in the group, after winning 104:59 over Lebanon with 89:81 (22:17, 24:26, 22:16, 21:22) also beating Angola.
Santiago Aldama collected 24 points and eight rebounds for the winners, and Willy Hernangomez had 22 points and ten rebounds.
For the Angolans, five players scored between 11 and 15 points, with Jilson Bangu becoming the top scorer, who also had nine rebounds. Bruno Fernand added 12 points and 12 rebounds.
On Thursday in Valencia, Finland will meet Poland and Lebanon will meet Angola in the battle for a place in the semi-finals.
It has already been reported that Latvia lost to the Philippines 80:89 in subgroup A in Riga and entered the semifinals of the tournament thanks to Tuesday’s 83:55 victory over Georgia. The place of the Latvian national team will become known after Thursday’s match between Georgia and the Philippines.
Montenegro beat Cameroon 70:66 in subgroup B in Riga on Wednesday. A day earlier, Brazil defeated Montenegro 81:72 in this group, and on Thursday, Brazil and Cameroon will play each other.
In all four tournaments, only the winner gets the only ticket to Paris.
The Olympic Games in Paris will be held from July 26 to August 11.
2024-07-05 08:16:33