At the press conference after the game, coach Ken Diederich talked about the game against Iceland but also about the pre-qualification tournament in general.
The loss against Iceland was obviously a shock for the team, because of the dramatic end with a 3-point-shot for the opponent. „There were even some tears after the game, it was a bitter end. It hurts that we could not reward ourselves with another victory after an amazing performance », says coach Diederich who continued to say that this team has shown over the last years and in this pre-qualification that „this current national team is the best luxembourgish team of all time and the best basketball generation we have ever had. In my opinion, it is not even close, it is remarkable what we have reached. I think that we deserved to advance another round. »
However, this performance does not mean that the team will enter the next campaign with much higher ambitions. „These situations and chances do not come around very often. I think it is too early to enter a qualification with higher ambitions. This team has a lot of potential and will build on that for the future. » Diederich is extremely happy to coach this team because of the mentality of the players. „What we have accomplished is enormous, I know that Luxembourg is not a basketball country but everybody should recognize that our performances are outstanding. » Diederich has often said over the last weeks/months that Luxembourg needs more professional players to make another step forward. „I hope that we will have more professional players in the future, it is difficult to accomplish bigger things with players that have regular jobs. In order to qualify for the next round, everything needs to work perfectly for Luxembourg. »
Oliver Vujakovic praised the team and staff for not giving up: „The first half was difficult on the defensive end, but we showed a great reaction and never stopped fighting. Our team deserves respect for the answer in the second half and we believed that we could win this game at any moment. Now, it will definitely take a few days to handle this loss mentally. All in all, we can be proud about our performance, we will continue to work and get better. We may not have 12 professional players on our roster, but the mindset of our players is professional and we are one team, that is our main strength. The next goal for our team should be to win 3 games and qualify for the next round. »
