featured-image

Mario Hezonja, Croatia Fall in Stunner

Josh Cohen
Digital News Manager

By Josh Cohen
Aug. 13, 2016

Men’s basketball at the 2016 Olympics has been remarkably unpredictable so far.

We’ve seen mighty USA survive a pair of scares from Australia and Serbia. We’ve seen Spain, the No. 2 ranked team in the world, lose its first two games and then destroy previously undefeated Lithuania by a whopping 50 points.

Many of the games have come down to the wire, including France’s exhilarating victory over Serbia and Argentina’s thrilling double-overtime win over Brazil.

And then there have been unexpected outcomes. Brazil defeating Spain, Australia coasting past France and, most recently, Nigeria prevailing over Croatia have been stunners.

As a result of all the excitement and madness, the final two days of group pool play will be fascinating.

For Mario Hezonja and Croatia, Saturday’s surprising 90-76 loss to Nigeria means Monday will be filled with various stipulations. A win over Lithuania and they advance to the knockout stage. But, if they lose, the results from the Spain vs. Argentina and Nigeria vs. Brazil games will be significant.

Fortunately, because their game is the final contest of the day (9:30 p.m. ET), Croatia will know what’s at stake when it takes the court against Lithuania.

Croatia got off to a solid start on Saturday (led by seven after first quarter) before getting outhustled by Nigeria, which did most of its damage on the offensive glass (17 offensive rebounds) and from behind the 3-point line (17-of-36).

Bojan Bogdanovic had another big scoring night with 28 points but the rest of the team struggled mightily. Dario Saric scored seven points and was in foul trouble for much of the game. Hezonja finished with five points and Krunoslav Simon had just two points. Croatia shot 6-of-28 (21 percent) from 3-point distance.

Michael Umeh led Nigeria with 19 points, while Josh Akognon posted 18 points and Ebi Ere scored 14.