National team of Ukraine: From minus Slovenia, and Macedonia - plus

Rows of the Ukrainian team must fill naturalized American Eugene "Pooh" Jeter. After spending the first week of training camp in the South, the men's national team of Ukraine went to a number of test matches in Slovenia. Let me remind you that in this country will start on September 4 European Championship, where the act and our national team.
Therefore, the current meetings with the teams of the hosts of Eurobasket 2013 and Macedonia were very useful. First of all, in terms of identifying those players who will be worthy of the right to play on a grand display. It is worth noting that the first "cleaning series" Ukrainian team coach Mike Fratello made before departure to Slovenia. In particular, the home defenders were sent Alexei Shepkin (BC "Dnepr"), Paul Burenko (BC "Donetsk") and Ruslan Otverchenko (BC "Kiev), as well as forward," Cherkaska Mavpy "Denis Yakovlev. Expulsion of the last looks rather strange, since last season Yakovlev had a very good idea, as one of the undoubted leaders of their team. But, apparently, the American coach had his reasons.  As for the three defenders, then the chances to gain a foothold in the national team of their objective was not a priori. Especially, in a short time in the blue-and-yellow uniform must clothe former NBA pleykeyker "Sacramento Kings" Eugene "Pooh" Jeter, whose naturalization process is about to exit successfully.

Anyway, Jeter himself had written on his Twitter: "I'll play for the national team of Ukraine to Slovenia! My coaches are Mike Fratello and Joe Wolf. " Well, the appearance of a team of such high caliber masters will be very helpful. After all, the local clubs qualified defense actually is not, and another naturalized American Stephen Burtt seem to desire to continue the performance of our national team is not lit. Especially, the Eurobasket-2011 expectations fans of their actions, he did not live.  And Jeter, by the way, with the Ukrainian basketball sign firsthand: In the 2007-2008 season he played very productively for BC "Kiev". After this "Pooh" continued his career in the Spanish clubs "Unicaja" and "Juventud" and in the "Hapoel" of Jerusalem. And spent the 2010-2011 season in the NBA, which defended the colors, "the Sacramento Kings." In the t-shirt of this team, he played 62 matches, with an average of 13.8 stayed on the floor a minute, picking up during this time 4.1 points and 2.6 making the transfer. Last season 29-year-old defender played in the Chinese "of Shandong", which gained an average of 24.9 points per game and made 5.1 assists. Let us hope that the national team of Ukraine Jeter could be a very useful performer. As for the test matches of our team in Slovenia, then went there 15 players. Because of injuries in this list do not fall Cyril central stretch of the imagination, and defender Alexander Kol'chenko and Sergey Gladyr playmaker, striker Artur Drozdov and Bigman Vyacheslav Kravtsov, in agreement with Mike Fratello, must arrive at the location of the team at training camp in Kiev which will begin today. To this point remains unclear picture on the need to pivot Mike Fratello Lischuk Sergei and Alexei Pecherova and defender Artem Boutsko. So far, all of the above without our national basketball team played in Slovenia are two completely different on the content of the game ...

SLOVENIA - UKRAINE - 74:46 (19:10, 24:10, 20:12, 11:14)

Slovenia : Edo Murici (13), Z.Dragich (11 + 5 rebounds), Blazic (10) G.Dragich (10), Vidmar (9). 

Ukraine : Linden (14 + 4 losses) Pustozvonov (0) Kornienko (2 + 3 blocked shots), Lucas (0 + 7 losses), Zabirchenko (0) - start; Beavers (6) Stefanishin (6) Konev (5) Mishula (5), Glebov (2) Pustovoy (2 + 4 losses) Timofeenko (2), Fesenko (1), Zaitsev (1 + 7 rebounds), Slipenchuk (0). 

Comment on this game hard. Suffice it to say that in the end our basketball players have made 28 (!) Losses ball from the foul line only implemented 14 of the 25 shots (!), And during the first half allowed opponents to make a breakthrough - 36:4 (!) and which prejudged the crushing defeat of the "blue-yellow". 

MACEDONIA - UKRAINE - 60:69 (13:21, 20:15, 12:13, 15:20)

Macedonia : D.Stoyanovski (13), V.Stoyanovski (11 + 5 rebounds), Samardzhiyski (8), Chekovski (8), Ilievski (7) Kostoski (5 + 5 assists).

Ukraine : Lime (2), Zaitsev (11), Pustovoy (8), Mishula (2) Zabirchenko (4) - start; Stefanishin (10), Lucas (10), Timofeenko (8), Slipenchuk (5), Glebov (4), Pustozvonov (3), Fesenko (2), Bobrov (0 + 7 rebounds), Konev (0).

In this match, our basketball players are much stricter played in defense, have implemented all of its 15 shots from the foul line, which allowed them to keep the winning score in the end the match when rivals tried to save the game using the tactics of quick fouls.  Further training plan for the Ukrainian team Eurobasket 2013 is as follows: July 29 - August 8 - training camp (Kiev), August 9-11 - International (Serbia), August 13-18 - training camp (Southern) 19 -22 August - training camp (Kiev), August 23-24 - friendly against Poland and Sweden (Poland), August 28 - a friendly match against Russia (Moscow), August 29-31 - training camp ( Kiev).