EuroBasket: Croatia and Russia Face Off in Round of 16

After Latvia beat Turkey in the last match of the EuroBasket group stage, Croatia learned their rivals in the round of 16.

In the last match of the group stage, Latvia beat Turkey and therefore placed second in Group D, dropping Russia to third place. Because Croatia would play against the third place team in Group D,  Russia and Croatia will face off in the round of 16 of EuroBasket! The match is scheduled for Sunday at 20:30, reports Gol.hr on September 7, 2017. 

Russia won third place in Group D after a 4:1 win and loss ratio. Russia opened the competition with three wins against Turkey, Serbia and Belgium, and then suffered a heavy defeat from Latvia (84:69). In the last round, they celebrated a win against Great Britain.

In all five games in the group, Alexey Šved was Russia’s best shooter. In each game, he scored at least 21 points, which is a clear indication that Russia is most reliant on the stage of the attack. On average, he scored 23 points and 5.6 assists per game.

There is also the Los Angeles Lakers center and NBA champion with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Timofey Mozgov who averaged 14 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.

In addition to the two, it is important for Croatia to look out for the always dangerous Vitaliy Fridzon, Nikita Kurbanov, Andrey Vorontsevic and Dmitry Khvostov.

Šved is Russia’s main shooter who always averages over 15 points per game, but it is important to note that seven players on the team make at least four shots per game. It’s safe to say that Russia is a reputable organization that has the breadth, and this match will be one of the difficult ones for Croatia. 

The primary task of Croatian coach Ace Petrović and his assistants will be to stop Šved and Mozgov. The rest of the team, overall, does not have a terrible amount of quality to seriously harm the Croatia side.

A little bit about Russia 

Russia was the European champion in 2007, and have won a silver (1993) and two bronze (1997 and 2011) medals. Russia has won two silver medals (1994 and 1998) in the World Championships, and in London, at the Olympic Games, they won the bronze medal (2012).

The FIBA #EuroBasket2017 Round of 16 match-ups are confirmed. Who do you want to see in the Quarter-Finals? pic.twitter.com/NWShYBJznw

— FIBA (@FIBA) September 8, 2017

If Croatia defeats Russia in the round of 16, they would face the winner of the match between Lithuania and Greece in the quarterfinals. 

If Croatia advances to the potential semifinals, they could face Serbia who would have to defeat Hungary before them. 

Translated from Gol.hr

 

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