BROTHER No 1: Ksistof Lavrinovic (pictured) as well as his identical twin brother Darjus, both playing on the Lithuanian national team, was not lucky at the EuroBasket 2009 in Poland.
VILNIUS - The Lithuanian national basketball team, playing without its biggest stars at the EuroBasket 2009 in Poland, was frightening Lithuania and forcing TV-watching Lithuanians to use unprintable language. The Lithuanian team, used to winning, lost everything that was possible to lose 's its only win in the game against the Bulgarians, European championship outsiders.
After the first unsuccessful game with the Turks, Lithuania managed to be defeated even by the Poles. It was received as a national catastrophe in Lithuania. Lithuania was previously defeated by Poland only in two games - in 1993 and 1997. Even the stage for this extraordinary event was scary. The Wroclaw city's basketball arena, where the game was played, was built in 1913 by the German Kaiser (then it was the German city of Breslau). The building's gloomy interior looks like a stage for shooting horror movies.
At the end of the game against Poland, trying to comfort spectators in a rather clumsy way, Lithuanian TV3 commentator said, "Some will say that it is a tragedy. Well, we'll go to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp - that was a real tragedy of humankind."
The headline in Poland's sports Web site sports.pl stated, "Lithuania is on its knees. Poland is great!"
"Let's not say that Lithuania without [Sarunas] Jasikevicius and [Ramunas] Siskauskas is not the same team. That's not true. Victory against Lithuania is the same as victory against Italy or France on the football field," wrote sports.pl.
After Slovenia defeated Lithuania 81-58, head coach Ramunas Butautas acknowledged his guilt at the briefing.
"I won't make my players the guilty ones. I would like to ask Lithuanian fans to forgive what they have seen. The game was terrible and shameful. I would like to ask all fans not to condemn the players. It is my fault. It is the coach who gives orders during the game - it is why I'm taking all the blame myself," Butautas said.
In their commentaries, the fans were accusing Butautas of blindly following his game plan, which included his favorite players, Andrius Mazutis (in substitution for Arturas Jomantas) and Robertas Javtokas, staying on the court while the fans demanded Tomas Delininkaitis (in substitution for Mantas Kalnietis) and Marijonas Petravicius, to be the main players instead.
"I don't understand what happened with our team. You ask me about it but I have no answer," was one quote by Lithuanian player Simas Jasaitis, accented on the official EuroBasket 2009 Web site, which also wrote that "despite being without four of their most influential players, Lithuania came into EuroBasket 2009 as one of the favorites."
One of those missing at EuroBasket 2009 was Darius Songaila, who this summer switched from the Washington Wizards to the Minnesota Timberwolves, while the latter traded him to the New Orleans Hornets where he plans to play next season. He watched EuroBasket on TV in the U.S.
"It looks awful. [...] It is a change of generations," Songaila told Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Rytas adding that Lithuania will have its chance during the next European championship of 2011, which will be held in Lithuania.
Latvia, with its Lithuanian coach Kestutis Kemzura, was even less lucky in Poland - it left the championship after three games.
On Sept. 14, Spain defeated Lithuania 84-70 and Lithuania for the first time since 2001 was eliminated from participating in the European championship's quarterfinals. Lithuania is in mourning because of this fiasco of fiascos.
