J. Valančiūnas emphasized next summer
A little later, Marius Grigonis limped after an injury, and the national team captain Jonas Valančiūnas also bit him.
The men of the Lithuanian national team hid – the result is depressing, but not exactly clear to the fan.
“A message to the fans – the support was really unreal. People gathered and supported us. That support was much needed and it’s a shame it ended so early. Thank you very much for your support as a captain. We talked to everyone that there was amazing support”, said J. Valančiūnas in his first words when he returned to Lithuania.
Kazios Maksvytis, who left the European Championship earlier than expected, did not fulfill the dream that the basketball country so longs for.
After a dramatic fight and a very healing overtime, the Lithuanian national team lost 94:102 to the Spanish team, which is going through a change of generations.
The Lithuanian team was eliminated in the round of 16, although before the “Eurobasket 2022” championships there were also talks about real chances to be among the three biggest teams of the Old Continent.
“The future? We’ll see next year. Good future. We got together…And the same coaching staff – the first year, a lot of new faces. We can’t turn back time now. We won’t do anything this summer, we just have to look to next summer, – said J. Valančiūnas about the capacity of the Lithuanian national team. – As they say: missed opportunities. There was a chance to go further and we didn’t use it. We will not turn back time. It’s a pity, and everyone’s mood is quite depressed, but for the whole next summer”
Lithuanian basketball fans talked about long-awaited team meetings, where the players go by bus to the Vilnius town hall square, they are hung with oak wreaths, concerts are held, and they laugh with them.
The last time the Lithuanian national team saw medals was in 2015, when the team was led by Jonas Kazlauskas. With this exit, the thirst for triumph only increased.
In the 2017 European Championship, everything also ended in the round of 16. In the 2019 World Basketball Championships, the Lithuanian national team did not pass the second group stage.
The Olympic selection tournament ended in a fiasco – Lithuanians did not qualify for the Games for the first time in the history of an independent country.
The 2022 European Basketball Championship was supposed to be a real refreshment – NBA powerhouses Jonas Valančiūnas and Domantas Sabonis arrived in the team, Rokas Jokubaitis, who took the lessons of Šarūnas Jasikevičius in the Barcelona club, Kuzminskas, Marius Grigonis, and Braškės from Lithuania showed their muscles.
However, a good composition was not enough.
The Lithuanian national team, which entered Group B of the dead, started with three defeats: 85:92 against Slovenia, 73:77 against France and 107:109 against Germany in overtime.
All three duels show one problem – the Lithuanian national team did not have the chance to play until the end, but then the team of K. Maksvytis defeated the Hungarian basketball players 87:64, and in the crucial duel they easily defeated the Bosnia and Herzegovina team 87:70.
Having been defeated twice in friendly matches, Spain should have given a full challenge in the round of 16, but the fans were unconsciously looking around, Lithuania needed to be in the quarter-finals (it is now clear that it is Finland, – ed.).
But painful mistakes and the mathematical decisions of the titled 61-year-old Spanish strategist Sergio Scariolo put an end to the path of the Lithuanian national team.
However, representatives of the Lithuanian national team unanimously emphasize that this team is capable of winning resounding victories.
“It is very sad, but there is something to hope for in the future. If we continue to make the same choices together, we will have some chance in the future. It is not easy in the championship, because everything is decided by one match. We would be better in the series, but it is as it is”, said Marius Grigonis.
V. Chomičius had a request for fans and the entire basketball community.
“We simply didn’t play the way we wanted to. Everyone always looks at how it should be, but everyone tried and did their best. We played like no one expected. This team is young, good and progressive. We have to wait and move on, said V. Chomičius. – We played two games where we scored one shot. If there had been, there would have been no questions or talk about some kind of historical shame. But we didn’t score. we need to think about how to be better for each of us in order to hit a further shot.”