Today, on September 8, after a day of rest, the men's National basketball team of Ukraine will play their last match of the group round of the European Championship, where they will oppose the team of Croatia.
According to the website of the Basketball Federation of Ukraine, the team of Ainars Bagatskis won all three of their opening matches at the tournament, after which they put up a fight, but lost to Greece. These results made it possible to guarantee a place in the playoffs. It remains to determine the place in the group, which will affect who our National team will play with in the 1/8 finals.
In fact, the Ukrainian National team can take place from second to fourth, which will determine the first opponent of the Ukrainian National team in the playoffs: the second place of our group C will play with the third one of group D; the third place of group C will play with the second of D; and the fourth place of group C - with the first of group D.
If Italy defeats Great Britain (and this is very likely, given that the match will take place in Milan), then the following situation is possible:
If Ukraine wins by any score, Ainars Bagatskis' team will become the second.
In case of defeat of Ukraine and victory of Italy, the three National teams will have the same number of points and it will be necessary to count the difference in personal meetings.
Currently, the situation is as follows:
Ukraine +11
Croatia -5
Italy -6
A defeat of 7 points or less will leave Ukraine on the second step.
A defeat with a difference of 8-16 points inclusive - Croatia will be in second place and Ukraine in third one.
A 17-point defeat - Ukraine will drop to fourth place
Boyan Bogdanovich averages 16.3 points in 4 matches played, Jaylin Smith averages 5.3 assists, and Mario Hezona (8.3), Dario Saric (7.8) and Ivica Zubac (6, 3). At the same time, 6 players of the Croatian national team play on average from 20 to 30 minutes. For comparison, we have four such players.
The main question is: "Will the Croatian veterans have enough strength for the fifth match in this pace?". However, a rest day might add them strength, so you shouldn’t rely on it. However, the performance of our National team at this European Championship allows us to hope for victory.
This will be the sixth official game of the National teams in history and, so far, we have won only one - the first one back in 1997.
The match between Croatia and Ukraine will be broadcast by XSPORT TV channel at 15:15 Kyiv time.
