Sunday produced another shocking upset at EuroBasket, as Georgia defeated France to reach the quarterfinals of the tournament for the first time ever, writes Cesare Milanti of Eurohoops.
Kamar Baldwin and Tornike Shengelia each scored 24 points and Shengelia added eight rebounds in the 80-70 victory. Orlando center Goga Bitadze also chipped in eight points. The French team got 14 points from Sylvain Francisco and 12 from Guerschon Yabusele.
“We said from the pregame meeting that we are playing to win,” Shengelia said. “We are happy to be here, but we are not satisfied.”
Next up for Georgia is a meeting on Wednesday with Finland, who took down Serbia on Saturday. Loaded with NBA talent, the French and Serbian teams were expected to be top contenders for the gold medal.
“We missed sometimes some easy shots,” French coach Frederic Fauthoux said after watching his team shoot 35% from the field, “so this is basketball.”
France was undersized with Vincent Poirier having to withdraw just before the start of the tournament due to right knee issues and Victor Wembanyama, Mathias Lessort and Rudy Gobert also unavailable. However, Georgia’s Sandro Mamukelashvili told reporters after the game that it wouldn’t have mattered if France was at full strength, per Edvinas Jablonskis of BasketNews.
“I wish them nothing but the best, but right now I can text Victor Wembanyama and tell him we just beat France,” the former Spurs center said, “and it’s too bad he was not here because we would beat them with him too.”
Poland kicked off Sunday’s elimination games with a 90-82 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milanti adds in a separate story. Former NBA guard Jordan Loyd led the way with 28 points, and Mateusz Ponitka contributed 19 points and 11 rebounds.
Poland will face unbeaten Turkey on Tuesday in a quarterfinals matchup.
After watching all of their group stage games, I’m not surprised at all that France got knocked out. They have better talent on paper due to having high NBA lottery picks, but none of them are big-time players. Even if they had Sarr. Coulibaly, Sarr, Risacher are not players who can propel a team to winning basketball, not yet in any case.
I thought, that’s a heck of a list but then I saw you had Sarr twice lol
Sarr does have a brother, but OP likely mentioned Wizard Sarr twice.
Alex Sarr was not playing in the knockout game due to injury; Coulibaly and Risacher were playing.
But even if he was, and France had all three recent high draft picks — Coulibaly, Sarr, and Risacher — on the court, it likely would not have made the difference, and they wouldn’t have medaled.
That’s what I meant :)
A lot of the current French players don’t have the heart and determination to be great that Tony Parker had.
Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly, and Zaccharie Risacher are all soft to me and lack motor. I don’t see the hype with neither of them.
Frank Ntilikina, Sekou Doumbouya, and Killian Hayes should’ve given NBA GMs PTSD to select French players so high in the draft.
To follow up what I said, Wemby was an exception, after him there has been a talent drop-off with the French players.
The Hawks rightfully so fired Landry Fields, after he passed on Georgia native, Stephon Castle, for Zaccharie Risacher, who clearly doesn’t have that “dog” in him to be an alpha, something you would except from a #1 overall pick.