BASKETBALL – Riffa claimed a strong third-place finish last night in the Bucharest Masters in Romania – the last stop on this year’s Fiba 3x3 World Tour before the highly anticipated Manama Final, set to take place on November 21 and 22 in the kingdom.
Riffa claimed their place in the top three after making it to the semi-finals, where they were narrowly beaten by Liman from Serbia 20-21.
They had earlier edged Chongming from China 22-19 in overtime during the quarter-finals.
Riffa competed in the Romanian capital with their quartet of Belgian nationals Dennis Donkor, Jonas Foerts, and Caspar Augustijnen, along with Serbian Milos Antic.
They secured their place in yesterday’s knockouts after winning both their games in Pool A of the preliminary stage.
Both their contests last night went down to the wire. Against Liman, they roared back from five points down and had their chances to win the contest.
But after a Foerts basket tied it at 20-all, he committed a foul and later a lane violation that led to the winning charity shot from Liman’s Andreja Milutinovic.
Augustijnen top scored in the loss with eight points while Donkor had seven and Foerts five.
In their victory against Chongming, the game remained deadlocked at 19-apiece at the end of the 10 minutes of regulation, forcing the extra session.
There, Riffa were the first to score two points – which is the required target for a win in overtime – after a Foerts attempt from beyond the arc got a friendly bounce and swished through the hoop.
He finished with 10 points as Riffa’s leading scorer, while Augustijnen and Donkor contributed six apiece.
With their final classification, Riffa are hoping that they have done enough to secure a place in the Manama Final, which will feature 14 of the world’s best 3x3 basketball teams.
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