still sluggish, the Fauthoux Blues confirm against Cyprus and get closer to Euro 2025

The French basketball team won its second victory against Cyprus in three days on Sunday at the Futuroscope Arena near Poitiers, again sluggish (85-70), but brings it closer to Euro-2025. The Blues, who lead Group E with four victories in as many qualifying days (the ranking on the Fiba website here), will be assured of finishing in one of the first two places if Croatia (2 v. ) wins in Bosnia-Herzegovina (kick-off at 6:00 p.m.).

Once again without their players playing in the NBA and the Euroleague, they, like in Nicosia (75-59), struggled against the 82nd nation in the world, for the first match at their head in France under coach Frédéric Fauthoux. Unlike Thursday, however, they managed to widen a significant gap after a quarter of an hour of play (39-20), thanks to their domination inside, a certain skill outside and good ball circulation. .

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But they then slowed down, mainly offensively, to only have a 13 lead at halftime (47-34) then only eight (72-64) 4 min 30 sec from time. A winning shot from Hugo Benitez then a dunk from Yoan Makoundou immediately allowed them to regain their composure (+13) and experience a rather calm end to the match although not really controlled. They were definitely safe just over a minute from the buzzer on a new dunk, on the counterattack, from Makoundou (83-70).

The French team was once again able to count on the activity of the power forward (11 points and 5 rebounds), as well as that of Amine Noua (14 pts and 5 rebounds) and Axel Bouteille (15 pts and 7 rbvds). The great hope in the position of leader, Nolan Traoré (18 years old), gave him a copy (8 pts at 2/11 shooting, 3 assists and 2 lost balls) even messier than Thursday, although it was well started (5 pts in the first quarter).