Lithuania-Montenegro should be a close one. Lithuania missing a lot of key guys, so every game will be a struggle (aside from getting blown out by Germany). Some basketballl journalists even made a hypothetical team out of all the Lithuanian players who are missing this event and that team on paper looks quite a bit better.
Still think Lithuania should have this, wasn't too impressed with Montenegro on Wednesday. Fully expect Valanciunas to take Vucevic's lunch money.
Jakucionis will play (as he also played for the Lithuanian youth teams every summer), but he's too young - I'm not even sure if he would be able to be a backup for our men's team yet. Not to mention this is a crucial offseason for him to prepare for his rookie year in the NBA. Buzelis has already "committed" to playing for our team but I guess technically it's still possible he might change his mind like Banchero did with Italy. Domantas has played for our team almost every summer, only missing the World Cup due to injury, and now this EuroBasket due to wanting to stay with his family / his newly born kid. I'm conflicted about not having him on our team. He's clearly our best most talented player but we never really managed to bring the most out of him in the national team setting - a lot of that was of course because of the fetish our coaches have had of trying to play Sabonis and JV together on the court (lol)... Aside from those three guys, we are missing our best shooting guard in Grigonis, our best ISO player in Brazdeikis, and our best perimeter defenders Butkevicius and D. Giedraitis (also a sharpshooter), and one of our best power forwards Ulanovas.
Sengun was so far above everyone else on the court last night. Some of those rebounds were massive, he looks like he's got a lot stronger again. Love to see it, he's going to take another step forward this year
Intense match, at times closer than the result shows. Lithuania wasn't that bad, but our guys are such a well-oiled machine. Gotta admit now, everything but a medal would be a huge disappointment. EDIT: Apparentely racial slurs from Lithuanian fans against German players at halftime, just when I thought they were the best in the tournament and cheered the in my last post.
Yeah our roster is just very shallow at the end of the day... Some guys aren't even seeing playing time in our national league. I was impressed by Germany, because even though they had a huge talent advantage, they were very strong tactically and very physical. I've heard about that. It was some small group of dumbasses. I really hope you won't start viewing our entire fanbase like that.
Germany are the clear favorites, they have the best cohesive unit......best combo of veteran talent and young players.
No worries, I can distinguish. From what I've read Linas Kleiza personally took care of these scumbags and had security throw them out. The kind of reaction I was hoping for. One of them has been banned for the whole tournament, hope your association will take further action and ban him from domestic competition as well.
A Lithuanian podcast of journalists who are currently in Tampere was talking about the incident after the game. They mentioned how our fan base really lacks organization/leadership to prevent such idiots from bringing shame to the whole country. There are many nice people who went to Tampere with their families and generally a wholesome experience, but also some bad apples / idiots who are buying up 20 cans of beer in local stores 3 hours before the game and then go to games completely smashed. And then they have no filter and reveal how much of a POS they are. It makes me sick just thinking about the fact that Schroder's wife and KIDS were at the game and possibly witnessed the whole thing.
They do look amazing. And after yesterdays Serbia-Latvia game, it certainly feels like Serbia isn't such a lock for the gold medals. It's probably a toss up at this point.
Sloppy and TO prone, unlike them, I think they have an extra gear to go to but are no favorites to me no more. They cut Topic because of his mistakes but seems they should have kept him, did not make a difference.
Serbia looking weaker as Germany rises. It'll be a tough call getting past the Germans, but with how dominant Alpi's playing the dark horse becomes much more likely the more the contenders/favourites fail to meet the moment...
Germany is the favourite now. Stacked team with future all star Franz leading the way. Really fun to watch..
Medal, yes. Like I said. But I'm not buying the tourney favorite stocks yet, as the team decreased during last year's Olympics. Seen it before. Wednesday will be interesting with group deciders Germany/Finland and Serbia/Turkey.
