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Host Turkey beats Slovenia to make first semifinal

ERSAN Ilyasova scored 19 points to help host Turkey reach the semifinals of the basketball world championship for the first time with a 95-68 win over Slovenia.

The undefeated Turks will face Serbia on Saturday after burying Slovenia by hitting 10 of 17 three-pointers, while beating their rival to nearly every loose ball.

"The guys, they flew," Turkey's coach Bogdan Tanjevic said. "They played the best of these seven games."

The teams traded leads five times until Kerem Tunceri's three-pointer with 6:35 left in the first quarter put Turkey 12-11 up.

That was the second of four threes Turkey hit in the span of three minutes, each one drawing huge roars from a highly partisan capacity crowd of about 15,500, packed with red and white.

Turkey finished the quarter on a 15-3 run to go 27-14 up. It kept the pressure on to start the second, hitting four threes in four minutes to open up a 41-25 lead with 5:25 to go.

Turkey, the tournament's best three-point shooting team, made eight of 11 three-pointers in the first half. It led 50-31 at half.

"They spread the floor really well," said Slovenia's Bostjan Nachbar, who scored 16 points. "We didn't adjust well to that and we were not aggressive enough today to make them take tough shots, to use fouls and all that, so we pretty much gave them open shots and they took advantage of that."

The Turks pushed the lead to 24 early in the second half, playing with an intensity that had guard Omer Onan clenching his fists and screaming after a 24-second violation was called on Turkey. Slovenia pulled to within 60-41 with 4:55 left in the third quarter, but got no closer.

Down 64-41, Slovenia called a timeout with 3:27 to go in the third quarter. Gasper Vidmar, head down, walked toward his bench, yanked out the bottom of his green jersey and threw it down violently.

"We tried to get back in the game but tonight there was no chance," Slovenian coach Mehmed Becirovic said.

Sani Becirovic had 16 points for Slovenia, and five Turks finished in double digits.

Serbia earlier upset defending champion Spain 92-89 to book its semifinal place.



 

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