The French male basketball team was eliminated to everyone’s surprise on Sunday in the round of 16 Eurobasket by Georgia (80-70).
The Blues, Olympic vice-champions last summer in Paris, fell high in Riga against the 24th world nation, which will play its first quarter-final of a European championship against Finland, a surprising tomb of the Serbian favorite on Saturday evening (92-86).
The men of the coach Frédéric Fluent led the debates for less than four minutes only on the entire game with a maximum of four points at the start of the second period (44-40).
France was often in reaction, still managing to equalize after having counted up to nine units late at the beginning of the fourth and last quarter (from 54-63 to 66-66). But Tornike Shengelia and Kamar Baldwin, thanks to a three points from the first named and three free throws of the second, created a new gap before sealing their historical success.
(Written by Vincent Daheron in Paris; French version Zhifan Liu)
