With their ticket reserved for the direct elimination round of the EuroBasket tournament this year, Slovenia (2-2) will play its last game in the group tour of the group against Israel (3-1) on Thursday. Israel is currently at the top of the group D ranking with a point difference of 26.
Start time and television calendar
Where: bottom of the arena, Poland
Luka Dončić could not find a better time to have his worst match of the tournament so far, because it did not matter in the rewarding victory on Tuesday against Iceland. Slovenia became the third member of their group to win a place in the round of 16 after the host Country Poland and their next opponent Israel did it first. And because Slovenia beat Iceland, France was able to benefit from the group’s fourth team to join the party.
Since Slovenia and Israel already dealt with business by advancing the direct elimination tour, technically, this could be considered an unimportant game for the two teams. But the classification and the difference in points are important to determine their placement in the 16 supports cycle. Ideally, the Slovenes want the most advantageous path possible to keep their Eurobasket campaign as long as possible.
For the last 16 teams of the tournament, the first four countries of the group A will merge with the first four countries of group B while it operates for group C and D. The most head of teams will have the advantage by facing the teams which ranked fourth in the opposite group while those who arrived in the second and third will compete.
Slovenia, which is currently seated in the group D fourth seeded, should do everything possible to climb in third place. This also means that hope that France lost against Iceland by as many possible points, which is a difficult demand since the latter has not yet won a match not only in this year’s tournament, but in their Eurobasket history.
That said, it would always be good for the Slovenes to take it seriously and perhaps even to approach this game as a direct elimination match already given the way Israel has played. The Israelis are a young and hungry team led by Deni Avdija and a solid support cast.
They are determined to end their drought of 46 -year -old medals and to compensate not to go to the stage with direct elimination in the last two tournaments. So far, they have achieved their goal by being one of the most efficient teams in the competition.
It is not certain that Slovenia and Israel will sit or not to sit on Thursday, but if they do not do so, this should be the ideal opportunity for Slovenes to measure themselves against the best team in their group. A strong and third consecutive victory would be the ideal way to finish the group’s tour. Let’s see Dončić and his team can do that exactly.
