Lithuania could miss the World Championship for Women

[adebisi]

The greatest women basketball player in Lithuanian sport history - Jurgita Štreimikytė said goodbye to NT. She was playing for Lithuania since 1993. The upcoming season with Vilnius "TEO" will be the last too.
Thank you Jurgita for great and exciting basketball, we'll miss you

[adebisi]

Yes we beat Spain!!! What a game after losing to them so bad last time!!

Lithuania 80 - Spain 71

Sweet revenge All game was very close, but Lith girls was excelent at the end and took the victory! Streimikyte after awful game vs USA this time was unstoppable - 23 points and 14 rebounds

[YYY]

And Russia defeated USA. What a great day!

[Lietuvis]

I wasnt following this championship too much. Saw games only vs Canada, Senegal and half game vs Brasil, so I dont can we win one more game. Without Sulciute its a hard task unless Spain or other team we meet later would be unmotivated. I didnt like our coach strategy all the time using only 7 players and getting others exhausted even in meaningless minutes.

I didnt see game vs USA, didnt sleep much two nights before, so I knew if I managed to stay till this one I would get asleep after 3 minutes

Yes we beat Spain!!! What a game after losing to them so bad last time!!

Lithuania 80 - Spain 71

[Zalgirinis]

do you think we are in a position to win at least one of the remaining games? I mean, we have 6th place to deffend (taken 8 years ago - you know, for the FIBA rankings..). next game is against Spain (I think they played against Spain in last years Eurobasket as well, not to mention this tournament) and the other one - against Czech Republic or France.

and btw, did you watch the USA game?

I wasnt following this championship too much. Saw games only vs Canada, Senegal and half game vs Brasil, so I dont can we win one more game. Without Sulciute its a hard task unless Spain or other team we meet later would be unmotivated. I didnt like our coach strategy all the time using only 7 players and getting others exhausted even in meaningless minutes.

I didnt see game vs USA, didnt sleep much two nights before, so I knew if I managed to stay till this one I would get asleep after 3 minutes

[kestas]

No, she wont. Sulciute is out of the tournament as well as backup guard Ela Briedyte, who got injured in first game vs Canada.

BTW, hottie in my avatar is Ausra Bimbaite from Lithuanian NT

do you think we are in a position to win at least one of the remaining games? I mean, we have 6th place to deffend (taken 8 years ago - you know, for the FIBA rankings..). next game is against Spain (I think they played against Spain in last years Eurobasket as well, not to mention this tournament) and the other one - against Czech Republic or France.

and btw, did you watch the USA game? I overslept. why did Streimikyte finish with -5 rating? was she doubleguarded or something? though she shot nine times and missed all shots.. and she only had 16 minutes of play.. our kids played substantial minutes though - nice! it's actually pretty strange we only lost by 34 anyways, I suspect it was Streimikyte's worst performance ever in the LTU NT. Bimbaite was the most effective player for us - very cool, but also somewhat worrying.... other players are underperforming, compared to the begining of the tournament..

[Zalgirinis]

will she play today against US ?

No, she wont. Sulciute is out of the tournament as well as backup guard Ela Briedyte, who got injured in first game vs Canada.

BTW, hottie in my avatar is Ausra Bimbaite from Lithuanian NT

[Picek]

Lithuania 55 : Spain 75

Sulciute did not play so basically we played without a center most of the time.

will she play today against US ?

[kestas]

I've watched Spain yesterday, they've played a great game... especially Valdemoro....
they've totally outrunned Canada yesterday, and they've had a very good shooting night which I find kind of unusual for women basketball...
ofcourse Canada is way from being a medal contender but still...

good shooting is a typical feature of women basketball imho. they at least are not worse shooters than men. sure, men may be faster with their release and stuff like that, but actual percentages are very simmilar if not the same. that's just imho..

regarding Spain, Valdemoro seems to be their weakness, actually. what would they do if a player who scores half of their points suddenly gets injuried or stuff like that.. however good they were today, without Valdemoro finishing their brakes and going for the hoop against three Lithuanians (and scoring with a foul), they would have a good fight on their hands against Lithuania.
on the other hand, other teams have leaders as well.

[Picek]

overall we won the first quarter by 4. then lost second one by 5, third - by 9 and fourth by 10. trend was there for all to see. out of gas, I presume.. Spain ran like crazy up till the very end. good performance.

however..

Valdemoro got 52% of Spain's points (39 out of 75, would you believe it), which, again, could probably happen only in NBA or in Women basketball.. sick.

I've watched Spain yesterday, they've played a great game... especially Valdemoro....
they've totally outrunned Canada yesterday, and they've had a very good shooting night which I find kind of unusual for women basketball...
ofcourse Canada is way from being a medal contender but still...

[kestas]

Lithuania 55 : Spain 75

Sulciute did not play so basically we played without a center most of the time. I think this is only possible in Women basketball and in NBA
wait, we did have a center in Razmaite.. she was pretty effective on paper, but it did not seem that way from the game. indeed we miss Baranauskaite and Marciauskaite badly. I think Baranauskaite is considerably better than Sulciute. Marciauskaite could have been helpfull too, but who cares now.

overall we won the first quarter by 4. then lost second one by 5, third - by 9 and fourth by 10. trend was there for all to see. out of gas, I presume.. Spain ran like crazy up till the very end. good performance.

however..

Valdemoro got 52% of Spain's points (39 out of 75, would you believe it), which, again, could probably happen only in NBA or in Women basketball.. sick.

I also had doubts about the refs, but who cares as we stood no chances anyways. our players seemed tired in the second half, which is not surprising. coaches relied mostly on 7 players up to this match and today they only used 7 players overall! this is insane. I don't even think this could happen in NBA overall 7 players saw playing time, but one of them (and my favourite LTU player. after Bimbaite maybe ) - Valuzyte - had a black day finishing with -1 index rating. I hope this strategy of bringing a couple of kids instead of known players (16 and 17 year old players are in Brasil for LTU) will pay dividends in the future, coz now it seems as if we could do with someone who can actually play.. anyways, today the coach clearly overrelied on Valuzyte. there were options on the bench, but they were not even tried. in the light of this maybe it's better that those teens are sitting on the bench and not a couple of additional vets with their own ambitions and stuff like that..

btw, rebounds were only lost by 24 to 29, which shows we have good forwards. anyways, one more good center would have helped (to lose by less than 10 )

so basically we'll play US (or Chech Republic, if half of US players are being food poisoned as I write this) and that's only if Australia beats Argentina. otherwise we will not make it to the top 8.

[kestas]

Any Lits know the status of these players for tonights VERY important game vs Spain ??

Valuzyte is ok (she finished the game yesterday), while Sulciute looked in deep trouble yesterday. you know, crying and stuff.. you sorta get used to it, for women game crying seems to be a normal thing.. anyways, no news about her (as far as I know), but it did not look promising yesterday at all.. and she's very important as we have problems with centers..

btw, Streimikyte also fel hard on her back in the last quarter. it looked terrible, but she was ok..

[zik013]

Argentina is the dirtiest team in the worl

"It was a very nervous match, a lot of violent plays. Never seen something like this. Two of my players got seriously injured, one of them got punched in the mouth, there was a lot of blood. Much of this is because the game was very important for both sides, who needed to win to pass to the next phase". (A. Paulauskas, Lithuania's
coach)

"We fought a lot to get to Brasil and participate on this tournament and now we want to be among the world's best eight teams. Our fierce play today against Argentina will be on court tomorrow against Spain. The match with Argentina was a bit violent, Sulciute had problems in her anckle, and Valuzyte got punched hard on the mouth. But we hope to have them both tomorrow against Spain, for it is a key match for us". (Valentiene, Lithuania's guard)


Any Lits know the status of these players for tonights VERY important game vs Spain ??

[Lietuvis]

This is a fair decision as it is not in the spirit of sport to make such complaints especially when the circumstances are out of your control.

Shame on you Australia, Argentina, Brazil and Canada

[LuDux]

Sao Paulo (FIBA World Championship for Women) - The teams from Australia, Argentina, Brazil and Canada launched a protest against the result of the game Lithuania – Australia. The FIBA Jury of Appeal, which met today in Barueri on the case, decided unanimously that all four (4) appeals be dismissed and that the final score of the game B1 and the classification of Group B be confirmed as per the decision taken by the Technical Committee of FIBA. The details of the case and the reasons for the decision are outlined here:

http://www.fiba.com/pages/en/news/press_article.asp?r_act_news=16463&r_cat=68&page_news=1&mySearch=&nMonth=&nYear=