Croatia comes from 19 down to earn spot in U18 EC Final

It was as if the entire Croatian team heard the FIBA.tv announcer say, “At this point, Croatia could possibly just fold up.” At the time, with 7:24 left to play in the third quarter, the Russians had built what seemed like an insurmountable lead (43-24), had both ends of the court completely under control and the Croatians looked like they had just started playing basketball a few weeks ago. Shortly after, Dominik Mavra hit two free throws, Mislav Brzoja dropped in two three-pointers, Dario Saric added four of his game-high 24 points and in five quick minutes Croatia had pulled to within five points, 43-38.
Going into the final 10 minutes, the Russians still held on to a five-point advantage, 47-42. That didn’t last long though as Saric fired up a three, missed, and teammate Kario Lebo got the offensive rebound, kicked it back to Saric, who made good on the earlier miss by sinking a jumper to pull the Croatians to within three. Russia had their share of opportunities on their next possession when Viktor Kashin missed a jumper, squad mate Serdar Annaev grabbed the offensive rebound and dumped the ball back to Kashin behind the arch for a three, he missed that one and Annaev again hauled in the board and kicked it back to Kashin for one more three attempt, which he also missed. Saric grabbed that rebound and Croatia was able to do in 10 seconds what Russia failed to do in over a minute when Lego knocked down the three-pointer to tie the contest at 47 with 7:54 to play. Russia’s Pavel Krechetov hit a three of his own to put Russia back up by three, but Brozja answered with a shot behind the arch of his own to tie it up again at 50 with 7:15 to play. Marin Maric hit the second of two free throws to give Croatia the lead for the first time since 4:24 in the second stanza, and he increased the margin to three when Brzoja stole an errant Annaev pass and set up the jumper with 5:54 to play (53-50). Over the next two minutes it looked as if neither team wanted the win with multiple missed shots and turnovers on both ends of the court. Russia’s Stanislav Ilnitskiy ended the scoring drought with 3:43 to play with a two-pointer to cut the deficit to one 53-52. Maric stretched it again with two of his own at 2:58. The squads again traded missed and turnovers for the next two and half minutes with Russia not able to capitalize on multiple opportunities under the basket. Tomislav Gabric seemingly put the game out of reach with a three with 18 seconds to play, but a quick three at the other end of the court by Mikhail Kulagin brought Russia to within two with 15 seconds left. Russia only had two team fouls at the time, so they had to foul three times to get Croatia to the line for a shot at getting the ball back. Unfortunately, when they did get to shooting fouls, they ended up having to foul Mavra twice, who hasn’t missed from the charity stripe in the tournament (18 for 18). He hit two with eight seconds to play, Russia called a timeout and got a basket on the inbounds pass to get back to within two. Mavra was fouled again on the inbounds play and he hit free throws 17 and 18 for he tournament to seal an unbelievable comeback, 61-57. Saric’s 24 lead both teams, even after going scoreless in the fourth quarter and at one point, having 22 of Croatia’s 42 points. Brzoja added 12 to the winning effort. Russia was paced by Kulagin’s 15 points and 13 rebounds. A key stat of the game was Croatia making 17 of 22 free throws (77.3%), while Russia was only five of nine (55.6%). Croatia will now face the host squad from Lithuania in the Championship game on Sunday.