Poland Falls To Argentina, Will Play Spain In FIBA World Cup Quarterfinals (09/08/19)
Team Poland, under fell from the undefeated ranks in the FIBA World Cup with a 91-67 loss to a very strong Argentina Team, which the ESPN+ announcers, early on, described as “one the World’s Best” and “a Championship contender”, this morning (Sunday, September 8th).
In-spite of the loss, Poland has still earned a place in the Quarterfinals, where they will play Spain. The final eight game will be Tuesday. Poland will enter that game as the second team from Group I, with a 4-1 record.
Argentina led 20-14 after one quarter and 42-27 at the half. They led 70-41 after three. Team Poland outscored Argentina 26-21 in the fourth, setting the 91-67 final.
Poland was led by A.J. Slaughter who scored 16 points.
Argentina was led by Luis Scola, who played in the NBA from 2007-2017, who finished with 21 points and had a good all-round game, and Marcos Delia who shared scoring honors with Scola.
In the post-game news conference, Poland Head Coach and former Clarion Area Bobcat player Mike Taylor stated, “The effort was there, but it just wasn’t our night. A lot of that had to do with how well Argentina played. Whether that’s their experience on this stage, or in this situation, more than us, you can say what you want, but we take ownership of this game and we are going to make our adjustments and work to be ready for the quarterfinal match-up.”
Coach Taylor said, “Let’s give respect to Argentina. They outplayed us today. We take ownership for the game and our performance. For us I think the big thing was their defensive pressure.”
“For our team, we thought about this game as finding the level of what it is going to take to be successful in the quarterfinals. We did not find that today, offensively or defensively. That is a credit and respect to the Argentina team. They really pressured us and outplayed us.”
In spite of the loss, Coach Taylor is happy with how far this team has come, how they have exceeded the expectations of many. “I’m so proud of our team for what we’ve accomplished here, getting to the quarterfinals. I think that’s a big surprise for everyone. So it is a great experience for our team to be on this level and on this stage…”
He sees this game as a learning experience. “We can learn from this game, what we can take from it and the adjustments we need to take to play better against the defensive pressure. And when we do that, we’ll get the shots we want and we’ll have a chance to be much more competitive. So, for me, we’ll learn what we can from this game,we’ll own it and we’ll just try to prepare the best we can for Spain or Serbia, whoever we face.”
(PROUD OF YOU MIKE AND TEAM POLAND, FOR REACHING FINAL 8!!!! HAVE A GREAT QUARTERFINAL GAME!!!!)