Latvia vs Poland: Basketball Prep & Match Preview

The Latvian basketball team will meet Poland twice in the World Cup qualifiers at the end of the week – on Friday at home and on Sunday in Gdynia.

In November, our selections started unsuccessfully, losing to the Netherlands (also a victory against Austria), therefore we are already close to the edge of the cliff, we would really need two victories in the tournament table.

Poles with two Americans

The previous games for the Latvian national team were the first under the leadership of Sito Alonso, and although it was previously emphasized that cardinal changes in the style of play would not be introduced immediately, already the first minutes of the match against the Netherlands showed that the Spanish specialist introduced other accents in the defense. They are quite specific, there were many misunderstandings that allowed the Dutch to get away quickly. The first pie was burnt, the second one in Austria was also burnt, but they still managed to be eaten in the second half.

There is no doubt that this time the Latvian national team will have already taken a step forward. But also an opponent from another shelf. The Polish national team has played very well in the two previous European Championships, reaching the semi-finals in 2022, but last year they reached the quarter-finals in Riga. Nine players, including all leaders, from last year’s squad are lined up for these qualifiers. Poland has two naturalized American point guards – Jordan Lloyd scored an average of 22.4 points per match in the European Championship and is a teammate of Rolanda Schmitt in Istanbul’s “Anadolu Efes” this season, as well as Jerich Harding representing Lithuania’s “Rytas”. One naturalized player can participate in the match, let’s see what the Polish plan will be.

The long-term leader of the Polish national team is the light striker Mateusz Ponitka from the Turkish club “Bahcesehir”, he was previously also in the “Panathinaikos” of Athens. In his club career since 2017/2018. In 2010, when he represented the Spanish “Tenerife”, he did not score more than ten points on average in a match, but there is a real locomotive in the ranks of the national team, he averaged 18.1 points, 8.1 rebounds and 4.1 assists in the European Championship.

Season of the Legionnaires

Among the 16 candidates of the Latvian national team are seven players from last year’s European Championship. From the quartet playing in the Euroleague is Rolands Schmidt, there was no one in November. “Anadolu Efes” has a game in the ULEB Euroleague on Wednesday, the Valmieri player is expected in Riga on Thursday. Šmits did not participate in the previous six matches, the club won five of them, but the season as a whole is terrible so far – 17th place in the Euroleague, sixth in Turkey, Šmits also has a limited role.

In the extended list of candidates, Alonso also included Rodion Kuruc, who has a Euroleague match with Vitoria “Baskonia” on Thursday, and the next match is only on March 6. The previous weekend in the King’s Cup, Rodion played three days in a row, helping the club win the trophy. However, health did not allow him to join the team. Dāvis Bertāns representing “Dubai” has not played since mid-January due to injury. Artūrs Žagars has not played for Euroleague champion and leader Istanbul “Fenerbahce” this year, although he was registered for one game in the middle of February.

Artūrs Strautiņš returned to the line-up in November after a cruciate knee ligament injury and did not participate in the first qualifying window yet, but this time he is in the line-up and in good shape. Tortona’s Derthona overcame the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the Coppa Italia at the weekend, losing to Olimpia Milan in the deciding game. The Latvian striker regularly plays over 20 minutes and often scores double-digit points. The club is in fifth place in the Italian league. Also, unlike the November games, Kristers Zorik, who moved from Spain to the Italian championship in January and has played six games for “Udine”, will be able to help the national team, the time is very variable – from seven to 29 minutes. Eighth place for the club in the table.

This season, Mārcis Šteinbergs has taken a promising step forward, whose average playing time in Spain in Manreza’s “Baxi” exceeded 20 minutes for the first time, the best score also in points scored (7.7) and long-range shots (41%). The team is 13th out of 18 in the table. Lugo’s “Rio Breogan” also won as well, Artūrs Kurucs has a stable place in the rotation, but the success in three-point shots compared to last season is almost half worse (it was 47, now 28%).

The captain of the Latvian national team, Rihards Lomažs, is having his most productive season in the ranks of “Neptūnas” from Klaipėda, he scored over 18 points per game in the ULEB European Cup, but fresh emotions will be useful now, as the club has lost six matches in a row. From the middle of January, Kārlis Šiliņš has also been playing in Klaipėda, who did not get to prove himself in Turkey, but is getting decent playing time, averaging 7.8 points per match in the Lithuanian league.

Mareks Mejeris is having one of the best seasons in his career, playing an average of 32 minutes and scoring almost 12 points for “Stal” Ostrava of Greater Poland in the Polish Championship. The team with the smallest budget is currently in the “play in” zone – tenth out of 16.

Roberts Blumbergs is in Turkey with big minutes and an average of almost 10 points per game, but “Petikm Spor” is at the bottom of the table.

Toms Skuja recovered from his injury in December and played in all eight games of Ludwigsburg “Riesen” in the German Bundesliga in the new year, scoring 12 points and five assists in 31 minutes of the last one. The team is in the middle of the table, occupying the ninth position.

Andrzej Pasečnik, who played an unsuccessful match for the national team in November, and who plays everyday in distant Taiwan, has not been invited this time.

Greater confidence

Sito Alonso, head coach of the Latvian national team: “I’m always in a good mood, but the first defeat in November was very difficult, because I wasn’t sure how the players would accept my game philosophy in some training sessions and learn such important details. Now I feel better – we already know each other, I liked how we reacted after such an unpleasant loss in the first game. I know that players like Dāvis Bertāns and Rolands Šmits always want to represent the national team. But when playing in the Euroleague mode, you also have to think about health – in the team we need healthy players. It will be great, but we have a very good, stable squad. But we have to think more about our competitiveness. We want to play better than in the first game.”

Latvian national team

Adrians Andzhevs, Kristaps Ćilps (both “VEF Riga”), Roberts Blumbergs (Izmir “Petkim Spor”, Turkey), Klāvs Čavars (Baku “Sabah”, Azerbaijan), Artūrs Kurucs (Lugo “Rio Breogan”, Spain), Toms Leimanis (Reykjavik “KR”, Iceland), Rihards Lomažs, Kārlis Šiliņš (both Klaipeda “Neptunas”, Lithuania), Rodijs Macoha (“Riga Zellii”), Marek Meijers (“Stal” of Greater Poland Ostrava, Poland), Anrijs Miška (“Kalev” of Tallinn, Estonia), Rolands Šmits (“Anadolu Efes” of Istanbul, Turkey), Toms Skuja (“Riesen” of Ludwigsburg, Germany), Marcis Šteinberg (“Baxi” of Manreza, Spain), Artūrs Strautiņš (“Derthona” of Tortona, Italy), Kristers Zorik (“Udine”, Italy).