Ukraine beat Austria 68-57 to secure a spot in the FIBA European Basketball Championship next summer! Sergii Gladyr led the team in scoring with 17 points, and Maxym Korniyenko had a double-double with12 points and 12 rebounds. Our bench did a good job and helped us to a 17-7 run down the stretch to close out a very tight game. On Wednesday we will face undefeated Croatia on their home turf in Slavonski Brod.
Photo courtesy of Anatolii Riabukha.
Following Tuesday’s tough 80-79 loss to Croatia in overtime, Ukraine bounced back with a 68-47 win over Cyprus in Game 4. We got a big lift off the bench from Zaba Zabirchenko and Max Pustozvonov, who contributed 15 points and 14 points respectively. Maxym Korniyenko pulled down 9 rebounds, and Slava Kravtsov had 8 boards. Our record now stands at 3-1 in the qualifying round for EuroBasket 2013. After a short break Ukraine will head to Pécs to face Hungary in Game 5 on August 30th.
Photos courtesy of Anatolii Riabukha.
On Saturday Ukraine beat Austria 61-57 in a come-from-behind coup. Nine of our players contributed to the scoreboard. Oleksiy Pecherov led us in scoring with 11 points, and Maxym Korniyenko was big on the boards with 8 rebounds. Sergii Gladyr put up two clutch 3-pointers down the stretch, and we wound up outscoring Austria 13 to 6 in the fourth quarter. Next up we face Croatia in Game 4 at home in Kiev.
Photo courtesy of Anatolii Riabukha.
Ukraine wound up 1 and 2 in last week’s friendly hosted by Georgia. We beat Estonia on the first night, but lost against Belarus and Georgia in the following games. It’s not the best way to finish up exhibition play heading into next week’s qualifying tournament for EuroBasket 2013. Our young team will be going up against talented opponents with much more experience competing at the international level. Fortunately we have a couple more practices to regroup and prepare before opening up against Hungary on Wednesday.
Photo courtesy of Anatolii Riabukha.
