Ainars BAGATSKIS: “12 players – the optimal composition of the Ukrainian national team”

Ainars Bagatskis, the coach of the Ukraine A National Basketball Team, which will play the last matches of the 2023 World Cup qualifications with Italy and the Netherlands, evaluated the applications of 12 players.

“If a team has three practices in Riga and two in Italy, there is no point in inviting more players. The main thing is that there is a balance between the positions. The coaching team is in such a situation to invite more players and create additional competition. he saw no reason. Now we have 12 basketball players who have proven everything and I think this is the best squad now. Compared to November, Pustovoi and Bliznyuk are back, I like the way Vladimir Konev plays for Budivelnik. Actually we have always followed his game closely, but in the past other players have made it to the national team “We’re talking about not only statistics, but also the player qualities that the team needs. In the last window, Ilya Tyrtyshnik made his debut for the national team, played a little, but defended himself, made a three-pointer, which means that he is useful to the team.

Now we are focusing more on experienced players, but there is also a young Alexander Kovlyar who is waiting for his debut in the national team. I want to say that I am very satisfied with the composition that I will get.

Slava Kravtsov helped a lot in the last game window but now she’s playing in Taiwan. Even now it would be ready to go, but the long flight, to take the player all over the world given the acclimatization… That makes no sense. Krutous, Zotov and Tkachenko are injured. They were in the game window, but Tkachenko was injured two weeks ago. He’s training now and maybe a candidate, but that still doesn’t make sense. Krutous suffered an ankle injury in Budivelnik’s last game in Lithuania and Zotov has a sore throat, the club told me. That means he’s been away from basketball for two weeks. Vitali really wants to join the national team, but since he has not been training for a while, we decided that it would not be appropriate to call him. And there is someone to replace him,” he said.

Ukraine has little chance to participate in the World Cup, but for this you need to win two matches and wait for the results of your opponents.