The European Basketball Championship is going well from a German point of view, but the DBB team has already become part of an annoying situation: the referees made an unworthy mistake in the thriller against Lithuania, which caused trouble. It's not the only one at this EM.
The basketball world association FIBA is getting into more and more explanations at the pan-European European Championship. In stark contrast to the exciting and rousing games in the preliminary round groups, there were rather unusual mishaps with the referees and the technology for a large tournament in the past few days.
In Germany against Lithuania, the referees forgot a free throw for the Lithuanians after a technical foul by the Germans. In the game Georgia vs Turkey the clock wrongly advanced 22 seconds even though the game was stopped. The problem: Both games went into extra time twice, so the officials' small mistakes were potentially decisive for the outcome of the encounters. In addition, after the encounter between the Turks, there is said to have been a physical altercation in the dressing room.
According to the Turkish assistant coach, the Turkish professional Korkmaz is said to have messed with three Georgians. The Turkish federation even threatened to withdraw from the European Championship afterwards. An investigation into this is ongoing. "Once the investigation is complete, the relevant FIBA bodies will decide on further disciplinary action," it said.
NBA star player Luka Doncic said of the recent error series: "I think you can see for yourself: the fall in time with the Turkey game, the technical foul here with Lithuania. That's something that FIBA takes care of, so I have nothing to say about that." The Dallas Mavericks guard grinned a little to himself, but refrained from more explicit criticism of those responsible. Germany's Daniel Theis was dissatisfied with the role of the referees after the 109:107 against Lithuania. "I have to be careful what I say now. You can see from this that the referees are too busy with themselves to find their own line and then something like that is forgotten," said Theis at Magentasport.
Lithuania and Turkey's protests were dismissed. The Lithuanians said that this was not done within the required time and that the reason was not sufficient. In the second case, the officials justified the decision by saying that Turkey could not prove that without the timing glitch the result would have been different. FIBA was also criticized for the duration of the decisions. The rejection of the Lithuanians' protest was announced at 1 a.m., and almost 24 hours passed before the decision in the Turkey case.
