HAMBURG (FIBA U17
World Championship) – Going home with a bronze medal hanging around
your neck, or go home with empty handed – or rather with a fourth place
at the FIBA U17 World Championship, that is what was at stake in the
first of today's two medal games.
Both teams came in eager to collect some hardware for the ones left back
home. Lithuania got the better start, qickly opening up an 11 point
lead, thanks to some fine shooting performance from beyond the arc
(5-of-10 in the first half).
Canada, who once again had to come along without forward Anthony
Bennett, fired on 4-of-8 from deep and trailed 40-43 going into
intermission.
Another three point shot from Kevin Pangos (13 points, 5 assists) gave
Canada the 68-67 lead at the 6:16 mark of the fourth quarter.
Lithuania bounced back, but was outplayed by Olivier Hanlan's (15
points) three point-play (77-77, 29min).
At the 1:00 mark Mantas Mockevicius (16 points) drove hard to the cup,
got fould and hit 1-of-2 from the line. Lihtuania collected the ofensive
rebound, regathered, with Paulius Semaska hit a huge triple to make it
77-81.
But Hanlan was not done yet, raised on a trey of his own and initially
closed the gap (80-81). Lithuania could not score the following
possession and sent Hanlan to the line with 13.7 seconds left on the
clock.
Canada's youngster hit both, pressuring the Europeans to score.
Lithuania fell short on its last attempt, had to foul once more, as
Dyshawn Pierre put the nail in the coffin (83-81), while the whole bench
erupted as the final buzzer sounded only seconds later.
Quotes
Egidijus Zehevicius, Lithuania assistant coach: "First of all I want to
congratulate my team, all of my players, they did a good job here. A
fourth place position in the World Championship is very good. But now we
are a little bit sad after loosing this game."
Simonas Kymantas, Lithuania number 14: "Congratulations Canada, it was a
good match. At the end we did not manage to defend. They shot that
three-pointer and I think that was the deciding shot. We were fouling
them and they were just making free-throws and we did not quite manage
to come back into the game.
Roy Rana, Canada head coach: "First of all, I can assure you that it was
just as exciting from the bench as it was for all the fans. It was
nerve wracking, the Lithuanians, they are a very good, tough, strong
team. In many ways you wonder how we pulled that one out, but we found
our way down the stretch. I thought we made good shots, we came out
really aggressive in the fourth. This is a huge win for our country,
this is a huge win for these kids. A lot of them gave up two summers,
they worked extremely hard from day one. It's a special moment for
Canadian basketball and I am hoping to see many of these players
continue to represent our coutry for many years to come and hopefully
they will continue with success. We are going to enjoy this moment."
Olivier Hanlan, Canada number 9: "It was a really tough game, they are a
very good team. We struggled at the beginning but stuck to our game and
we won the game. Everybody, even the bench played well."
