Abused in November (73-67), the Blues this time failed to get out of the trap set by Montenegro on Friday night in Podgorica (69-70). MVP of the Betclic Elite final with Asvel, Élie Okobo missed the winning shot, in the right corner, six seconds from the buzzer, to conclude a starving evening for Vincent Collet’s players in this exercise (see figure ). France concedes its first defeat in the race for qualification for the 2023 World Cup but remains at the top of its group before concluding the first phase, Monday against Hungary at Mouilleron-le-Captif (8:30 p.m.).
Reinforced by an NBA player (Théo Maledon), several Euroleague players (Vincent Poirier, Élie Okobo, Paul Lacombe and Yakuba Ouattara), the Olympic vice-champions suffered the Montenegrin envy, visible on the rebound: a dominated sector (41 -35) even without stars Nikola Vucevic and Bojan Dubljevic.
1/15
The Blues have registered only one of their 15 shots attempted behind the three-point line (7% address).
Despite the activity of Vincent Poirier (18 points, his record in Blue, 12 rebounds), the Blues logically returned to the locker room led (33-31, 20th). Once out, they witnessed the awakening of the latest discovery of Montenegro: the naturalized American leader Jonah Radebaugh. For his first selection, he split 12 points, including nine in the third quarter, offering a small mattress in advance to his adopted country (56-48, 30th).
Active Maledon and Okobo
Back to the wall, Vincent Collet turned to an unprecedented five: three leaders (Okobo, Maledon, Andrew Albicy) and two pivots (Poirier and Mouhammadou Jaiteh). A winning cocktail: Maledon (16 points, record in Blue) and Okobo (14 points, record in Blue) brought the Blues back to the top before the young leader from Oklahoma City returned the Blues’ only long-distance shot on Thursday evening to take the lead (59-56, 33rd).
Neck and neck in money-time, the Blues equalized with a nice one-handed shot from Okobo (68-68, 39th) before going ahead thanks to a free throw from Jaiteh (12 points, 3 rebounds ). But the Bologna pivot left a point on the way and a shot from three meters from Nemanja Radovic (15 points) closed the scoring.
Already qualified for the second group stage, the Blues concede a first defeat and will have to recover on Monday against Hungary or risk seeing the path to the 2023 World Cup become a little more difficult.
