Italy And Croatia To Face Off In Final Of Olympic Qualifier

With only one game to go of the Olympic Qualifier, it’s down to Croatia or Italy as to who gets one of the final three Olympic spots open.

Croatia beat Greece to qualify for the final of the Olympic Qualifier. The match was an extremely close affair with Croatia prevailing 66-61.

Giannis Antetokounmpo had a terrible game. In 33 minutes he shot 3-of-14 from the field, scoring only nine points on the night. He collected nine rebounds and four assists but had six turnovers..

Thanasis Antetokounmpo played ok, but was only given 12 minutes where he scored five points, going 1-of-1 from the field and 3-of-4 from the line.

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Kosta Koufos was given 14 minutes and had four points and three rebounds on 2-of-4 shooting.

Unfortunately, Dimitrios Agravanis had a terrible game. In his 11 minutes he he a plus/minus of -12 and had five fouls. Fortunately he shot well, getting seven points on 3-of-4 shooting.

However, none of these four were the reason that Greece lost by themselves. Nick Calathes also had an appalling game. In 17 minutes he scored three points on 1-of-7 shooting. He also had three rebounds and three assists.

The problem for Greece is that he had two turnovers and five fouls. His plus/minus was -6, which is not what you want from a starter.

For Croatia, Mario Hezonja played a reasonable game. In 23 minutes he scored six points on 1-of-4 from the field and 4-of-6 from the line. He also had four rebounds.

Bojan Bogdanovic had his third highest scoring game of the tournament. In 33 minutes he scored 20 points on 6-of-17 from the field and 6-of-8 from the line. Bogdanovic also had four rebounds.

However, the star for Croatia was Dario Saric. Saric played 38 minutes out a possible 40 and scored 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting. Saric also collected eight rebounds.

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In the final, Croatia will meet Italy, the team that beat them 67-60 in the group stages.

In their semifinal, Italy had a much easier game against Mexico, beating them 79-54.

The game was so one-sided that Mexico only had one player with a positive plus/minus, Marco Ramos. He played three minutes and had no stats for a plus/minus of +1.

Francisco Cruz was their best player. In just under 39 minutes, he scored 20 points on 9-of-16 shooting. He had seven rebounds and seven turnovers.

No one else on the Mexico team got more than 10 points.

Italy, on the other hand, had four players with double digit points and no players with a negative plus/minus.

Danilo Gallinari played 21 minutes and scored 16 points on 4-of-11 shooting. He also collected four rebounds. Marco Belinelli played 24 minutes and scored 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting. He also had three rebounds and four assists.

Luigi Datome played 28 minutes for nine points on 2-of-7 shooting. Fortunately, his poor shooting was not the worry that Calathes was for Greece as the game was so one-sided. Andrea Bargnani played a supporting role, playing only 16 minutes and scoring eight points on 4-of-5 shooting.

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Italy is now the only unbeaten team left in the tournament but Croatia keeps developing good players and has been a good teams for years. It should be a highly anticipated matchup in the final.