Ukraine Upset Great Britain In Final Game

Denys Lukashov contributed 4 points and 5 rebounds before fouling out and still seeing his team beat favourites Great Britain

Great Britain will have to wait to see if they will top Group B after their EuroBasket qualifying campaign ended in a 75-66 defeat to Ukraine.

Britain had already booked their qualification by beating Bosnia & Herzegovina on Thursday, but had hoped to wrap up top spot in the group here.

However, it was not to be as they trailed most of the way to a Ukraine team who take provisional control of third place and the right to play in the additional qualifying round.

Britain briefly led early on but a 13-1 run put Ukraine up 21-15 up and they did not look back.

Britain cut the gap to one, 27-26 on Luol Deng's three-pointer early in the second quarter, but that was as close as they got as Ukraine edged away.

They led by as many as 16 in the second half as they collected only their third win of a tough qualifying campaign.

Serhiy Lishchuk led Ukraine with 21 points and 10 rebounds, while Maksym Pustozvonov added 14 points.

Pops Mensah-Bonsu had 18 points and 10 rebounds for Britain, while Deng chipped in 17 points.

Quotes Ukraine vs. Great Britain

Serhiy Lishchuk, Ukraine player:
"The result's on the scoreboard. We finally played with our hearts, we played together. It's so important for our young team. We were able to see that it's not the personalities that win the games but the teams and we were one on the court tonight. We had a bad start in this campaign, we had our ups and downs but we got together and showed we deserve to be on the basketball map. Right now it feels like if we had two more weeks we'd advance from this group being first. We've started to understand each other, we got a great coach. We are a young team and we have a great future - I am confident about that."

Vitaliy Cherniy, Ukraine head coach:
"This was our last battle and we had no right to lose it with the fans we had in this gym. I want to thank all the players for every single minute they spent on the court. I'd like to thank the people who believed in us but also those that didn't as they inspired us to prove them wrong. Tonight's game was won by the side that wanted the win more and I am we showed this will. I am glad we've managed to reduce the number of team turnovers from game to game."

Ogooluwa Adegboye, Great Britain player:
"We gave ourselves chances to win but in the end just couldn't pull through. We needed to get consecutive stops. We did that sometimes and that's when we were fighting back, but in the end we just couldn't get over that two-three point hump. We knew they [Ukraine] are a good team, they compete, they push the ball, they attack, we knew all that so we could not underestimate them."

Chris Finch, Great Britain head coach:
"Congratulations to Ukraine. Good win for them no doubt. Difficult game for us, once we got behind, we coudn't get over that hump and as a result we always kind of were chasing the game. This loss is disappointing because we wanna win every game that we play to make sure we have the best record overall. But ultimately we achieved our goal and we are proud of that. Nobody ever gives us a chance so we have to be proving people wrong."