Poirier puts on a dunking exhibition, France survive Tuzla madness

MUNICH (Germany) - There aren't many arenas louder than the Mejdan in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A capacity crowd was on its feet for most of the game, but could not propel the hosts to a FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers win over France.

That's mostly because Vincent Poirier decided to fly over the BIH defense, the Real Madrid big man dunking over and over again to draw a few "oohs" from the home crowd en route to a 74-64 win.

 
Turning point: France were up by as many as 13 points, but Dzanan Musa and his teammates refused to surrender. They crawled all the way back to -3 with seven minutes to play, creating an atmosphere so loud it looked like the arena was shaking.

Luckily for France, they have a veteran coach in Vincent Collet, and his players did not panic for a single second. Collet sent Andrew Albicy to match up with a much bigger Musa defensively, slowing down the hosts biggest offensive weapon.

The French playcaller kept feeding his frontcourt on the other end, drawing up plays for Poirier and Guerschon Yabusele. The one-two punch delivered the knockdown, three straight buckets by the two of them opened up an 11-point lead with just over two minutes left to play.

Game hero: France won't be flying by an airplane on their way back from Tuzla, they'll just climb on Vincent Poirier's back and he'll carry them home. Big play after big play, dominant presence on both ends, Poirier finished with 13 points and 8 rebounds, France were a +17 team with him on the floor, a team-high by some distance.

Honorable mention: Guerschon Yabusele with 16 points and 9 rebounds.

 

 

Stats don't lie: Bosnia and Herzegovina won't beat anybody with a 3-of-19 three-point shooting night, especially not the #1 team in our pre-event Qualifiers Power Rankings.

Bottom line: France swept the Balkan neighbors, clearing both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to start the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers at 2-0. Albicy's defense on Musa should and probably will be studied by Real Madrid's next opponents, his pressure really bothered the biggest star in Tuzla.

 
Musa did finish with 15 points, but turned the ball over six times and was a team-low -14. Coach Aziz Bekir (Adis Beciragic) will be happy with the effort, but he knows his team's faith will be determined by the doubleheader with Croatia in November.

They said:

 
FIBA