Dubai // Spain almost blew a trip to the Fiba Under 17 World Championship semi-finals on Thursday night at Hamdan Sports Complex in Dubai.
Emphasis on almost.
Spain have been a very boom-or-bust team during the tournament. For the first three quarters, good Spain built an 11-point lead. With just over a minute left in the fourth, bad Spain turned it into a one-point deficit.
And then good Spain reappeared, and in the final minute rallied for a 71-67 win to reach the tournament’s final four.
“For me, the game was a perfect 56 or 57 minutes,” Spain coach Carlos Duran said. “But the last minute was incredible. The mentality of these players is incredible.”
Guard Sergio Garcia led Spain with 20 points, Ramon Vila had 15 and captain Pablo Perez scored five of his 12 points in the final minute to push the Spaniards past France.
Now they look to the semi-finals and a game against Australia.
“I’m happy, but I need one more, minimum one more,” Duran said.
“Australia is a very good team, but if my team plays, it’s possible.”
The Australians continued an impressive march through the tournament, ending Puerto Rico’s underdog run with a dominant 76-52 victory.
Dejan Vasiljevic remained the team’s scoring engine, draining 21 points in the win.
The 1.88-metre guard even led the team in rebounding, grabbing 13.
Australia’s 2.11m centre, Isaac Humphries, had 16 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks, and captain Tom Wilson chipped in 11 points.
Arnaldo Toro led the Puerto Ricans with 18 points and nine rebounds.
In the other semi-final, the United States and Serbia go head-to-head. The Americans finished off an upstart Chinese side with relative ease in a 113-71 victory, as their 2.08m-centre Henry Ellenson had 21 points and 10 rebounds to become the fifth different player to lead the US in scoring in five games.
Captain Hao Fu scored 16 to lead the Chinese in the loss.
Serbia ended the run of a promising Canadian side with a 71-64 win.
Serbia established an 11-point lead after the first quarter, only to go into the fourth trailing by three, before making a 19-9 run to win.
Jamal Murray had 24 points for Canada, but was slowed by an in-game injury.
Point guard Stefan Peno had 16 points and six assists for the Serbians and Vanja Marinkovic collected 18 points.
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UAE show competitive spirit against Angola
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The UAE were unable to build on an encouraging start yesterday as they slumped to an 89-47 loss to Angola at the runners-up competition to decide places nine through 16 at the Fiba Under 17 World Championship in Dubai.
The UAE lost heavily in all three of their group games and their last-16 match against Serbia, but they proved more competitive against Angola, trailing 21-17 to their African opponents at the end of the first quarter.
However, they were unable to maintain that form for the rest of the game as the Angolans pulled clear.
Rashid Mohamed scored 17 points and captain Salem Suwais had seven points and four rebounds for the undersized Emirati team, while Majid Al Zarooni added eight points and Mohammad Juma contributed six for coach Zoran Zupcevic’s side.
The UAE play Japan on Friday for the right to play in the 13th-place game Saturday.
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