A round-up of last night’s action as four teams booked their spots at next year’s Eurobasket in Slovenia.
Group A
Montenegro improved to 7-0 and qualified for Eurobasket 2013 with a 72-62 win over Serbia. This win secured a bragging rights double over their bitter rivals, as they beat them in Belgrade as well.
Sead Sehovic led Montenegro with 20 points with Milos Teodosic geting 13 points and six assists for the Serbians.
Serbia are now in a three-way tie for second place, as they are joined by Israel, who thumped Estonia 84-53. All three teams have 4-3 records. The other game saw Slovak Republic get their first win, as they beat Iceland 86-84. Both have 1-6 records.
Group B
Germany remain undefeated thanks to a 95-67 success in Luxembourg. They go to 5-0 with Tibor Pleiss leading six Germans in double figures with 17 points.
The Germans are now within touching distance of Eurobasket following this win.
Bulgaria move up to second with a 94-77 home win over Azerbaijan in Samokov. Hristo Nikolov led all scorers with 26 points for the Bulgarians who join Azerbaijan on a 3-3 record.
Group C
Croatia and Ukraine booked their spots at next year’s Eurobasket following wins over Cyprus and Austria respectively.
A 98-49 thrashing was pretty much expected as Croatia made light work of Cyrpus, who have found the move up to Division A difficult as they slump to 0-6, Croatia are now 5-0.
Ukraine also qualified at 5-1 with a 68-57 win over a stubborn Austria side in Lviv. Sergii Gladyr led the victors with 17 points.
Group D
Bosnia & Herzegovina are on course for a spot at next year’s finals after they defeated Netherlands 99-83 in Sarajevo to stay top of Group D.
Brooklyn Nets shooter Mirza Teletovic led all scorers with an impressive 36 points as the Bosnians go to 4-2 while Netherlands, who are now 2-4 and fourth.
Georgia stay second following a comfortable 91-74 win in Romania.
Group E
Poland and Finland are within touching distance of Slovenia after they moved clear with wins last night.
The Poles destroyed Switzerland 111-67 with Marcin Gortat grabbing a double-double of 31 points and 13 rebounds. He also blocked three shots.
Finland aree comfortable in Tirana against Albania, as they won 95-52. This win keeps Finland unbeaten at 5-0 while Poland are second on a 4-2 record.
Group F
Italy celebrated in-front of their home fans in Trieste as they beat second placed Czech Republic 68-56 to march forward to Eurobasket with two games to spare.
Pietro Aradori led the Italians with 16 points and six rebounds as they improved to 6-0 with the Czechs dropping to 4-2 with Turkey, who won against Belarus in the group’s other game in third and with a game in hand.
The race for second will no doubt be heating up.
