By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
La Laguna Tenerife coach Txus Vidorreta explained why he believes his center Giorgi Shermadini’s fouls had an impact in the semifinal loss of his team to Galatasaray.
He also expressed his belief that some of the calls were questionable.
Here’s what Vidorretta said after his team’s loss 80 – 90 loss following Galatasaray comeback from down 15 points:
“Congrats to Galatasaray. They are in the final in the first FinalFour they played. We did the same, we played in the final in the first Final Four we played.
Of course we aren’t happy because we lost this game. But I think our first five minutes we controlled the situatons in 1 vs. 1 against [Will] Cummings and [James] Palmer the way we supposed to.
We were leading even by 15 points. but with the score 40 – 27, Shermadini is called with his second foul. Offensive foul. So-so foul. It was key for them. [Ebuka] Izundu had 2 points at that moment in the first 15 minutes and finished with 21 points.
They played very easy with confidence in the paint. During the third quarter in another “so so” foul on defense, Shermadini received his third foul. The second one was with 13 points down and the third one with 1 point up.
After that moment they played very easy. Izundu scored 11 in a row. We could only fight till the end. Try to make our best but in a difficult situation.Finally we didn’t have the chance to finish with 10 points down.
I repeat congratulations to Galatasaray but without Frank Guerra and without Gio Shermadini it was impossible for us in these conditions. We won 14 games in a row because we had Shermadini and Fran Guerra. Today we couldn’t make it with both out in key moments of the game.
We couldn’t play our defense. We have two rookie players 20 years old.They are not ready to play in the Final Four yet.
Before Vidoretta, Tenerife guard Bruno Fitipaldo had commented that, “… some decisions and some calls changed the game.”