Türkiye on Thursday extended their clean sheet to five games by beating Bosnia and Herzegovina 82-75 in Group C of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 European Qualifiers.
Türkiye started off strong in the first quarter, but Bosnia were hot on their heels. Both teams scored most of their points from inside the box, but at the end of the quarter, Bosnia edged out Türkiye 18-17.
Going into the second quarter, Bosnia controlled the flow of the game from the three-point line, stretching the Turkish defense to its limit. However, both teams overall still preferred to drive in and take advantage of physical mismatches to score.
Türkiye seemingly lost some of its momentum when Alperen Sengun was booked for his third foul halfway through the quarter, promptly being benched.
As the Turkish squad rotated their center players, the absence of Sengun blunted their momentum, allowing Bosnia to exploit the situation and end the second quarter and first half ahead 39-34.
Changing their defensive posture to be more aggressive and marking each Bosnian player closely, Türkiye found its stride again to blunt Bosnian offensives and retake the lead. As Sengun rotated into the squad with the addition of Adem Bona and Furkan Korkmaz, Türkiye took the lead in the game again.
Korkmaz’s three-pointers and Bona’s defense proved tough for Bosnia to crack. Scoring the most points in any quarter, Türkiye stood at 59 points against Bosnia’s 57 entering the final and decisive quarter.
With the teams neck and neck, it all came down to the final 10 minutes. While Luka Garza and Amar Gegic gave their all for Bosnia, scoring 27 and 19 points, respectively, this fell short. Going into the final two minutes 73-71, Türkiye’s narrow lead became more convincing with a critical three-pointer from Kenan Sipahi. From that point on, four free throws and a final dunk by Bona sealed the deal, extending Türkiye’s winning streak to five games.
After defeating Bosnia 82-75, Türkiye will play Switzerland on Monday for its final group game and proceed to the second-round qualifiers.