Lithuanian basketball players on Monday defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina 78:73 in the World Cup qualifying match and kept the faint hope of qualifying for the most important 2027 tournament alive.
However, the situation in the group remains complicated, after the Lithuanian team suffered a crushing defeat in Turkey over the weekend.
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Group J standings:
1. Turkey – 7 wins and 0 losses, 2. Serbia – 6 and 2, 3. Italy – 5 and 3, 4. Lithuania – 4 and 4, 5. Bosnia and Herzegovina – 3 and 5, 6. Iceland – 3 and 5.
The top three teams in the group will qualify for the World Cup.
The national team was missing nearly two dozen strong players for this competition window due to various reasons.
Some basketball personalities and fans, who brought posters to the game in Vilnius, believe that Mindaugas Balčiūnas is also responsible.
The head of the Lithuanian Basketball Association was interviewed Tuesday morning by LRT radio journalist Edvardas Kubilius. We present M. Balčiūnas’ answers.
About the changing roster: “During each window, the team roster changes by 50%, sometimes more. Having only a week to assemble a core of new players is not easy. The most important thing is that the coaches found ways to win, thus continuing the fight for the World Cup.
The window format creates difficulties for more than one country. And this is the new reality.
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The FIBA window system was reinstated nine years ago.
Since 2017, the Lithuanian national team competing in qualifiers has qualified for all championships so far.
Lithuania qualified confidently for the 2019 and 2023 World Cups, as well as the 2025 European Championships,
Only for the 2022 European Championship was drama and luck needed in the last game against Denmark.
We need to look at the next window, who will come. We know the players’ reasons – there are both objective and subjective ones. We must respect them.”
About reasons for refusals to come: “The players themselves stated the reasons. Both directly to us, the coach, and publicly. There are personal and health issues. Players like Rokas Jokubaitis or Tadas Sedkerskis would definitely like to represent, as would Arnas Butkevičius – he would like to represent, but health problems prevented them.
There are various problems. This is the new reality, the window format. In the previous window, we saw the determination, all players came. But then anything can happen. It is not easy to assemble a winning team from new players, even in the previous window. Sports aspects are one thing, but overall the organization shows that we can assemble teams. Of course, they do not always achieve results in sports terms, but this is the reality of the windows, most national teams face this.”
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About critics: “Maybe we all need to be more tolerant. But Lithuanian basketball standards are always high, fans demand victories. That is normal, I would say correct. Of course, it must be acknowledged that the basketball situation is highly politicized. People who cannot compete with knowledge, ideas, or basic common sense, we see that they resort to cheap actions, anarchistic aggression against the organization. We have gotten used to this, we do not pay special attention to it, we do not get distracted, and we just do our job.
As recent years show, women’s basketball results are the best in the last decade, youth – exactly the same, and 3×3 basketball – historically the best. The budget execution is overall record-breaking.
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M. Balčiūnas is probably talking about previous results, as no Lithuanian national team won medals this year.
The closest to the podium was the U16 boys’ team, which took fourth place at the European Championship.
Internationality, US basketball organizations like Michigan, Arizona come to Lithuania, we have the women’s basketball European Championship (2027).
Some things are not visible, especially we solved the problem of illegal competitions well, which also worries manipulators. We are preparing an agents’ regulation. All these things have some resonance and provide some background. But we do not get distracted.”
About Jonas Valančiūnas’ criticism: “Jonas Valančiūnas maintains a consistent basketball political line, which he has demonstrated since the last elections. The fact that he is a good basketball player does not change because of that.”
VIDEO: PIKENROLAS: Jonas, why are you not on the national team?
PIKENROLAS: Jonas, why are you not on the national team?
About personal responsibility: “I am elected by a community consisting of 160 members. It would be valuable to ask that wider community as well.”
About Rimas Kurtinaitis’ future: “I do not know why the question is raised strangely. The coach won the game, and we know which coaches could come, when they could come. We had those coaches who can come, certain agreements already now, a month ago, when that situation was.
However, we constantly demonstrate and declare our values. We must preserve the name of the Lithuanian basketball coach. We are very grateful to Rimas Kurtinaitis for taking on that responsibility. Of course, there are no undefeated coaches in history, because our best coaches sometimes end their careers in national teams with losses – that is part of sports. How it will be, the coach himself will decide, we are definitely for Rimas Kurtinaitis and will help as much as we can.”
Will R. Kurtinaitis continue working: “The contract is for the Olympic cycle. But you see, the situation a month ago, due to objective and subjective reasons, and decisions of the coach himself and the whole process are changing. Now we are happy with the victory and continue to plan for the next window.”
Lithuania – Bosnia and Herzegovina
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About the next window: “The past competition window showed that we can definitely assemble the strongest national team, we really have justified expectations that the next window’s team will be stronger in terms of player names, as Rokas Jokubaitis and other mentioned players will be in form. But it is not names that win, but the team. We are very happy for this team, which won against a strong Bosnian team as a team. Of course, Ąžuolas was wonderful, Augustas Marčiulionis – it is nice to watch their progress. But our goal is the World Cup, without attachment to names.”
