Slovenia – Ukraine. Prediction and match announcement – EuroBasket 2022

The Slovenia – Ukraine match will take place on Saturday November 28 in Ljubljana. The meeting starts at 9:10 p.m. Kiev time. The game will be broadcast live on the Xsport television channel.

More than nine months have passed since the last official match of the Ukrainian men’s basketball team. But any hiatus will come to an end at some point and on November 28 in Slovenian Ljubljana our basketball players will continue to fight for the European Championship. The capital of a small Balkan state is an iconic place for Ukrainian basketball. It was here that in 2013 our team reached its greatest achievement in history: sixth place at EuroBasket 2013.

And so the sporting destination brought us back to the main city of Slovenia. It was Ljubljana that determined FIBA ​​to host the November qualification window for the teams in group F. True, one of the national teams, namely the Hungarian national team, has already left the capital of Slovenia, But the paths of the Ukrainian and Magyar tournament should not have crossed in the last month of autumn.

But they will cross paths with the owners of the site, who are the current champions of the continents. It was the Slovenians who performed brilliantly on the continental forum in 2017 and won the title of the strongest team in Europe. That wonderful team brought together many excellent performers: the Dragici brothers, Anthony Randolph, Gaspar Vidmar and of course Luka Doncic brought the long-awaited trophy to the Slovenians.

Of course, the current version of the Slovenian team has little in common with the winners of the last continental championship, and all the fans of the Balkan team, sure, send “a cordial greeting” to the first people of FIBA ​​and Euroleague. Due to the conflict between the two leading organizations in European basketball, the reigning European champion is still unable to put together a fighting line-up and must rely on players playing for Slovenian clubs and European middle peasants. Also this time, the team will not be helped by such strong basketball players as Zoran Dragic and Klemen Prepelic, who were not released by their clubs that participated in the Euroleague.

Furthermore, Luka Doncic will not perform in Ljubljana. The main star of the Slovenian national team was eager to help his team, he stayed in shape with her in recent weeks and at the same time solved the problem with the leadership of the Dallas Mavericks. But Doncic was unable to persuade his employer and had to fly abroad shortly before the start of the Ljubljana “bubble”.

In general, the request for participation of the Slovenian national team in the qualification window is as follows:

Defenders: Luka Rupnik (Zaragoza, Spain), Matitz Rebets (Rouen, France), Jan Spahn (Guipúzcoa, Spain), Blaž Mesiček (Split, Croatia), Alain Hodžić, Jaka Blažić (both (“Cedevita-Olympia”), Luka Lapornik (“KRKA”)

Forwards: Gregor Hrovat (Cholet, France), Blaj Mahkovic (Helios), Jan Kosi, Miha Shkedel (both – Krka), Urban Durnik (Primorska), Edo Muric (Cedevita-Olympia)

Center: Jordan Morgan (UNICS, Russia), Yurai Makura (Primorska)

In this version of the Balkan team there is no clear leader, but there are a sufficient number of quality players who can cause problems for our team. These include defenders Matic Rebets and Jan Shpan, forwards Edo Muric, Jan Kosi and Gregor Hrovat. Each of the above players threw ten or more points into the ring of our national team in the last official match between the teams in February 2019. The player with the most status in the current squad of the Slovenian team is Jordan Morgan. The American with a Slovenian passport has proven his worth in the strong championships in Turkey and the VTB League, and is now called upon to help the Slovenian national team as a naturalized player.

Overall, the makeup of the Balkans is scathing, but certainly not top-notch. Much will depend on the willingness of the leaders of the current call-up of the Slovenian team to play great minutes of great quality, because Aleksandr Sekulich’s bench does not shine.

Not without problems with the composition of the Ukrainian team. Due to the coronavirus, Kyiv-Basket players Pavel Krutous and Bohdan Bliznyuk will not play in Ljubljana. It is especially insulting to Bogdan, who is a perfect fit for Ainars Bagatskis basketball and has recently become an indispensable player in his club and a very important element in the national team. And Pavel Krutous could have given our team good minutes on the court. Artem Pustovoy did not make the national team this time. The coaching staff of Barcelona, ​​which has the Ukrainian pivot in the Euroleague game, did not release it.

Here is the full list of players who were brought to Slovenia by Ukraine’s national team head coach Ainars Bagatskis:

Defenders: Alexander Mishula (Kiev-Basket), Issuf Sanon, Anatoly Shundel (both – Dnipro), Denis Lukashov, Alexander Lipovy (both – Prometheus), Vitaly Zotov (Chemist)

Forward: Vladimir Gerun (“Unicaja”, Spain), Stanislav Timofeenko, Vyacheslav Bobrov (both – “Dnipro”), Artem Kovalyov, Sergey Pavlov (both – “Kiev-Basket”), Alexander Belikov (“Prometheus”)

Center: Vyacheslav Petrov (“Prometheus”), Vyacheslav Kravtsov (“Dnipro”)

Let’s observe the appearance of a newcomer in our team. Anatoly Shundel has an excellent season at Dnipro (perhaps the best of his career) and he deserved an invitation to the national team. He is unlikely to be the starting player for our national team, but he can successfully enter the game from the bench.

Stanislav Timofeenko’s return to the national team stands out. The Dnipro bigman has not played for the national team since Eurobasket 2015. During this period, the conflict with former national team coach Yevgeny Murzin and Stas’s dismissal from the national team, and the performance of the national team 3 against 3. But, as we see, Timofeenko is back in the cage.

As for the rest, well-known players went to Slovenia, whose overall potential is quite high. Our front court looks traditionally powerful, even despite the loss of Artem Pustovoy. Our great men in the people of Kravtsov, Petrov, Timofeyenko, Gerun and Pavlov must again play the Slovenian front line, where Jordan Morgan is seen as the main rival.

It should be noted that the current match with the Balkan team will be the eleventh for Ukraine. The Slovenians were nine times stronger and our basketball players twice, and both victories were achieved at home. It is time to fix the statistics and try to beat the Slovenian team on the road for the first time. Our team has very good opportunities, it only remains to hope that the positions of Ainars Bagatskis make them come true.

Prediction Sport.ua: victory of the Ukrainian team.

November 28

Slovenia – Ukraine

Austria – Hungary – postponed