By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
With three minutes left, Iceland was leading 73-70 over Poland, and an upset for the hosts of Group D seemed possible. The game ended with Poland getting the 84-75 win and making it to the Round of 16, and left Iceland’s coach Craig Pedersen with a bitter taste.
“I’m not so much disappointed with the loss as much as how it ends”, he explained, talking to Icelandic media “Visir“, and he didn’t hold back talking about the referees.
As he said: “I think it’s BS. They are getting all these foul shots out of f… nothing. They are calling us for flopping, but then they flop, and then we get the foul. I think enough is enough, I think it’s overboard, I think things are not being refed evenly. Poland played a great game and won. Fine, I’m not disappointed with that. I’m disappointed with how it ended. We gave it our all to get back into the game, we gave our heart, and then our heart gets ripped out again”.
The bottom line for coach Pedersen was simple: “We are not getting the same foul calls with the other teams”.
In the press conference, Pedersen was more restrained: “It’s difficult to come back from -16, and it takes a lot of energy. But we did it and went up. One of their players hit an important shot in the corner to tie it, and then basically they just foul shots through the rest of the game”.
Forward Kristinn Palsson, who was sitting next to him, added, implying the refs: “In my opinion, there were two teams that played their hearts out, and the third team didn’t show up. That’s my honest opinion”.
Iceland has a 0-3 start in the tournament and very slim qualification chances.