On Saturday, our men’s national team played the second game of the qualification tournament against Sweden. The opponent showed its ambitions from the start and took an early lead in this game, the final score was 129:76.
Starting 5: Gutenkauf, Grün, Vujakovic, Laurent, Rugg
Sweden scored from all positions on the court to start the game and Luxembourg did not find a recipe to stop the opponent. Sweden scored a total of 33 first quarter points and led 33:21. Vujakovic and Rugg scored 6 points apiece to lead Luxembourg in the first period.
After only 14 minutes played, Sweden hit the 50-point-mark. Birgander, Sweden’s tall inside player could not be stopped and the FLBB-squad was forced to take some difficult shots by the strong defense of the opponent. Luxembourg was also able to show some good plays on offense (videos) and they scored 42 points in the first half, Sweden had 63 at the break.
Sweden started the second half with a very quick 12:0 run and extended the lead (75:42) to force Ken Diederich into taking a time-out after 2 and a half minutes. Sweden hit the 100-point mark with 1 minute remaining in the third quarter.
In a game that was decided early, Luxembourg kept playing hard until the final buzzer, the team now has 2 days without a game before the next game is on the schedule on Tuesday against Portugal.
Every Swedish player on the roster scored at leats one basket, Gutenkauf was Luxembourg’s main scorer with 14 points.
game stats –> boxscore Luxembourg – Sweden
On Friday, Luxembourg lost 74:83 against Portugal.
Next 2 games:
Tuesday (August 17th): Luxembourg – Portugal
Wednesday (August 18th): Sweden – Luxembourg
