ATHENS, Greece — This week the Lithuanian and Latvian men’s basketball teams are taking part in tournaments across Europe as part of the build-up to Eurobasket ‘09 which takes place in Poland next month.
The Lithuanians travelled to Acropolis Greece where they competed in the 23rd Acropolis-Eurobank tournament along with hosts Greece, Serbia and Russia.
Lithuania started the tournament on Monday evening with a commanding 78-61 win over the Russians. At half-time the Lithuanians only held a slender two point (36-34) lead, but came out firing in the second half to take the Russians out of the game. For the Lithuanians twin brothers Kristof and Darjus Lavrinovic were in particularly fine form combining for 27 points.
The Lithuanians could not back up that performance the following evening, though, going down 78-70 to Serbia, who came back from a first up loss to Greece. The Serbs shut down the Lithuanians shooting from outside the perimeter where they only managed a return of 2 from 26 3-point attempts.
In their final match-up of the tournament, Lithuania came up against the host Greece, going down 75-73 in a tense final match. The victory saw the Greeks come away as tournament victors, and Lithuania with just the one win.
Coach Ramūnas Batautas will be working hard with his team this week to help them find the winning form they had when they won the bronze medal match at last year’s Olympics.
One up, one down for Latvia
Meanwhile, the Latvian team flew to Ankara, Turkey to participate in the Efes Pilsen World Cup alongside hosts Turkey, F.Y.R of Macedonia, Great Britain, Germany and Croatia.
Paired in group B with F.Y.R of Macedonia and Great Britain, Latvia opened their campaign with a thrilling 86-84 victory over Great Britain on Wednesday night. Down 52-40 at half-time, Latvian stalwart Kaspars Kambala led the second-half comeback with a game high 18 points and six rebounds. The game remained tight until the dying seconds when Kristaps Janičenoks nailed the game winning jump-shot with 1.2 seconds left on the clock.
The tight game had obviously taken its toll on the Latvians who looked much flatter last night when they were easily trounced 95-74 by opponents F.Y.R of Macedonia. Down 28-15 after the first quarter, Latvia never managed to recover. Depending on the result of this evening’s match between F.Y.R of Macedonia and Great Britain, it looks likely that Latvia will finish second in their pool and go on to play the winner of tonight’s group A match between Germany and Croatia in tomorrow night’s semifinal.
