The Wine & Gold earned solid performances all around from both Cedi Osman (Turkey) and Ante Zizic (Croatia) in each player's respective FIBA World Cup Qualifying game on Friday afternoon. Read on to view the results from each game.
Round 2 Snapshots
Canada vs. Brazil
Americas Table
European Table
Turkey vs. Montenegro
For most of Friday's game, Turkey owned a nice cushion over Montenegro, but at the start of the second half, the tiny Adriatic nation clawed their way back into contention and brought the game to within four. However, Montenegro's effort fell short within the final frame when Turkey finally pulled away to put the game on ice.
As the dust settled, Cedi emerged as Turkey's leading scorer, notching 18 points and six boards over 36 minutes. The Milwaukee Bucks' Ersan Ilyasova followed Osman's lead with 17 points and eight boards. In total, four Turkish players scored in double digits in the squad's victory.
At the other end of the court, Bojan Dubljevic was easily Montenegro's best player. The power forward posted 22 points and nine boards for a near double-double. Petar Popovic (10 points) was the only other Montenegrin to score in double digits. With today's loss, Montenegro now falls to 3-4 in group play.
Croatia vs. Lithuania
While Ante Zizic and the Croatia squad didn't fair as well as Turkey did, they still held their own against the top-seeded Lithuania squad, coming within one point of tying the game. In the, 84-83, loss Zizic tallied six points and four rebounds through 15 minutes of action. The Wine & Gold big man also went a perfect 4-4 from the charity stripe.
The Philadelphia 76ers' Dario Saric finished as Croatia's leading scorer, knocking down 19 points as well as six rebounds and five assists.
On Deck:
For Cedi and Turkey, they'll try to build on their recent string of wins when the square off against the cellar-dwelling Slovenian squad this Monday afternoon. Tipoff from Ljubljana, Slovenia is at 2:00 p.m. (ET).
For Croatia, they'll head on up to Central Europe to take on Poland on Monday as well. The Croatians and Poles will tip off at 3:00 p.m. (ET) from Gdansk, Poland.