Luca Banchi shared his impressions during the press conference after his team was defeated by Canada at the FIBA World Cup.
Latvia finished their participation in the group stage in second place with a 2-1 record, which allowed them to advance to the next phase of the competition.
“First and foremost, I want to congratulate our opponents, who played a fantastic game. The statistics tell the whole story, their impressive performance, shooting, and their potential. I am proud of how we played, how we approached the game impressively, with focus and energy. During the game, it was tough to match them physically, in terms of talent… We lacked energy; we were playing against a team that has a lot of it,” said Luca Banchi, then added:
“Against teams like them, a lot of energy is expended, as you need to match their intensity. We provided emotions to our fans and showed that we’re ready to compete. I believe that at the end of the day, our national team deserved the applause of our supporters.“
The Italian coach didn’t want to dwell too much on the earned technical foul, but he emphasized that FIBA rules don’t seem to apply equally to everyone.
“Technical fouls are part of the game, my feeling was that the criteria for calling fouls weren’t consistent from the beginning. You come to play against Canada, and three referees from America… that doesn’t sound fair. Don’t look at their last names, we’re not talking about salaries, popularity, age… treat them the same. If we’re talking about the criteria for technical fouls, the opposing coach deserved a few. I think FIBA rules apply to some and not to others.
We accepted their strength, the game was played at a high level. We played a good match. My belt snapped at one point, but I always have a Plan B. It’s nice to see how these guys play with their character, except for the beginning of the third quarter (after a timeout, we returned one possession behind). I want us to play at a high level, I know it’s difficult in terms of energy, but that’s what I want. I hope we’ll have time to reset and prepare for the next round; we want to compete at that level. Our next two games are against Spain and Brazil.
Arturs Zagars played another good game, which is reflected in his 11 points scored.
“They know his potential, they watched him in the match against France. He played well, as did the entire team, but it’s normal given his age, body, and years to play a lot of minutes at this level. This is the level we want to compete at; we have to deal with that stress.”
At the very end of the press conference, Luca Banchi commented on a technical-tactical detail.
“I opted for mobility in this game; we know they often play with Olynyk at the five. I knew what options I had, and I did the best I could for our team.”