Lithuania narrowly avoid relegation

BILBAO, Spain – Following on from the highs of their national U19 team winning the FIBA U19 World Championships in Latvia earlier this month, Lithuanian basketball has been brought crashing back down to earth after their U20 men’s team barely avoided relegation from Europe’s top division at the recently completed European U20 Championship.

Confidence was high amongst the Lithuanians going into the tournament following their warm-up victory over the USA U19 team.

But confidence evaporated rapidly as the tournament began to unravel. After beating Italy in a close fought opening game, Lithuania fell apart, losing their next two games heavily to Ukraine and Germany, seeing them dropped to the 13th – 16th classification games.

The news was no better for them there, losing to Croatia and Serbia in their two opening games.

The losing rot would finally end when they bet Austria before they then had to play all three teams once more. They would then lose to Serbia again but then finish the tournament off by defeating Croatia and then Austria once more to narrowly avoid relegation.

The news was somewhat better for their northern Baltic neighbors Latvia who were able to finish the tournament in eighth place.