On 4th February 2021, the Women’s National team of the Republic of Belarus played the second game within the FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2021 Qualifiers in a bubble in Riga. Nataliya Trafimava’s team gained an important victory over team Great Britain – 67:57.
The course of the game
Both teams realized the importance of this game and did not force the pace. Thus a low performance in the first quarter. Our team won the first quarter with a score of 14-12. During the game with Poland, this time the Belarusians focused on the attack from the three-second area, this helped them leave the court for halftime with a leader status.
However, the advantage of the Belarusian National team after 20 minutes of the game was minimal – 34:33. Our rivals successfully fought for the basket and caused many problems for our "big ones" – Anastasiya Veremeyenka and Viktoriya Hasper.
It is worth noting the actions of Katsiaryna Snytsina and Yulia Rytsikava during the first half. This duo scored 20 points out of 34 team points.
Unfortunately, the third quarter went wrong. The British team took the lead in the first attack, then broke away by "+5" and gave the initiative up only by the end of the quarter. One of the most pleasant here was the shot by Yulia Rytsikava – the defender made a great buzzer beater and gave us +1 advantage – 52:51.
Key moment
The decisive moment of this game was the beginning of the 4th quarter. The Great Britain team could not score for almost 3 minutes (and taking into account the end of the previous quarter – 4 minutes), while the Belarusians made a 10-0 spurt and got "+8" points – 59:51.
Our rivals made several attacks and pulled up to "-4" but thanks to two long-distance shots performed by Anastasiya Veremeyenka and Katsiaryna Snytsina, Belarus created a double-digit advantage for the first time during the game. Team Great Britain failed to come back with "-10".
Numeral
6 – is the number of points the Belarusian allowed the opponents to score in the final quarter.
Comment
Nataliya Trafimava head coach of the Women's National team of Belarus: "We have such experienced players in our team that there was no need to explain how necessary the victory was. Everyone realized everything. Yesterday evening we worked on the mistakes and today have tried to prevent such rash actions. I am very glad that the team got together emotionally and physically and played the game against Great Britain with the right attitude. This coming Saturday, as part of the qualification for the EuroBasket 2021, we have to play the final game against Poland. I will only say that we certainly want to take revenge for yesterday's defeat."
Belarus vs Great Britain – 67:57 (14-12, 20-21, 18-18, 15-6).
What's next?
On Saturday 6th February, the Belarusian National team will play the last game. The rivals are the team of Poland.
We should note that at this moment the Belarusian team has good chances of reaching the final round of the EuroBasket 2021. The victory over Poland guarantees our team first place. We can lose the first line only if we are going to be defeated with a difference of 29 points or more, and with -31 Belarus will take third place in the group.
Poland vs Belarus
Start at 14.30
Live broadcast of the match:
- TV channel "Belarus 5";
- FIBA's official YouTube channel;
- belarus.basketball website.
Note:
33 teams take part in the FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2021 Qualifiers. The nine group winners and the top five runners-up teams will qualify for the final round of the FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2021. In order to determine the place in the group, all games will be taken into account. It also should be noted that the selection of the top five runners-up teams will not include the results of games against the 4th place teams in the groups of four.
The final part of the FIBA Women’s EuroBasket will take place from 17th to 27th June 2021 in France and Spain.
- Details