NAGPUR: High on confidence after their thrilling win over Israel, the Indian quartet outplayed Kyrgyzstan 21-7 in their last league game of the FIBA 3x3 U-18 basketball World Cup in Debrecen, Hungary, on Saturday.
With this win India finished the group of death at the third position after Israel defeated European championship finalists and table toppers Latvia in a thrilling last game 22-19. Despite finishing at a creditable third position against some higher ranked teams in the group, Indian cagers missed the quarterfinal berth by a whisker and bowed out of their first World Cup with heads held high.
At the end of the league stage of five teams, both Israel and Latvia posted three wins each to qualify for the quarterfinals. Israel finished on top after beating Latvia. Had Latvia defeated Israel, India would have moved to the quarterfinals for scripting the biggest upset of the World Cup on Friday where they stunned world no.11.
In their facile 14-point win over Kyrgyzstan, Indian future stars Harsh Dagar, Jaideep Rathore, Kushal Singh and Lokendra Singh made timely contributions for a combined effort. While Harsh top scored with 8 points, Jaideep (6), Kushal (4) and Lokendra (3) played well. After jumping to a six-point (9-3) lead in the third minute, India never looked back and sealed the contest with definite ease.
National head coach Veselin Matic of Serbia, who is in Hungary with the team, was satisfied with the performance. Speaking with TOI Matic said, "Two wins on a World Cup debut is not at all a bad start to our long journey. What I said on the first day was that we got rains at a time when we were ready to play the first match, then a five-hour delayed start with a sudden drop in temperature didn't go our way. Since we suffered a close loss to Ukraine, it was about getting some luck from the results of other teams. After a bad start to the competition that too due to the weather which we are not accustomed to, we found the way on how to play good game."
On what lies for the future of Indian basketball, Matic added, "Everyone say 3x3 is a big chance for India, now with such a performance the BFI will give more opportunity to young players while also focusing on the 5x5 format for both the men and women. This 3x3 is a little bit costly affair as the federation needs to send the team to play a lot of tournaments around the year. And then you have to have a good court to play as here our players played on a totally new surface for the first time."
