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A festival of athleticism on the basketball court

France can still defend the silver medal, but need to win everything from now on. They are now facing a team that can parry them in strength, which will make this an interesting match

The French have yet to win points in the second round, and their odds of getting to the quarterfinal are not the best at the moment. It is still possible, but in order to get there they'd need to win both remaining matches and hope for a fumble from Lithuania or Latvia. On paper that seems possible, but to achieve that they need to start playing much better right away.

Things did not look that bad against Italy yesterday, on the contrary actually, as France held the lead throughout most of the match. However, one struggles to understand why they allowed Mussini, a player known to be the best point guard in this tournament, to score 33 points, of which 6 were three pointers. The French team once again showed a lack of tactical discipline that would cost them, and defending the silver this generation won two years ago seems a very, very difficult task right now.

Shooting remains France's biggest ailment, as their shots were once again all over the place yesterday. Other teams have already marked that so everyone moves towards the paint against them, leaving little room for their great power forwards Kaba and Smock. They are also missing Wallez, perhaps the best player of this generation for them, who could open up the paint with perimeter shots. The status of his injury is unknown, but he missed the last three matches.

Today the French could be up for a particularly tough job as they'll be facing a team similar to theirs in athletic abilities. The Polish team are excellent on rebounding, as shown yesterday against Croatia, when they parried them throughout three quarters and even remained on equal footing in rebounding at the end, which is a great compliment to the  athletic abilities of team Poland.

One should be fair and admit that the close match was the effect of a great shooting performance by the Polish team, whose shooters made some impossible shots. Croatian defense was also "on leave" as they did not play the required pressing, allowing their opponents too much. However, the match still ended up with a +20 win for Croatia.

Today we can expect France to play extremely aggressive defense, as they're aware that's their only chance. Such a defense should force Poland to a lot of turnovers, and assuming they would be close or equal in rebounding I favor France to win in this match, regardless of the pale performances by both teams here so far.