A trio of former Arizona Wildcats are competing for their respective nations in the FIBA EuroBasket tournament, and all three happen to be playing in the same group.
Finland’s Lauri Markkanen, Lithuania’s Azuolas Tubelis and Sweden’s Pelle Larsson are competing in the two-week long tournament, which began Aug. 27 and is being held in Cyprus, Finland, Latvia and Poland.
Through three games, Markkanen is the second-top scorer in EuroBasket with 32.3 points per game, trailing only Slovenia’s Luka Doncic.
Markkanen scored 43 points in just 23 minutes of action in Finland’s win over Great Britain.
Markkanen’s 43 points are tied for second-most in a game in EuroBasket history, and it was the second time he has reached that figure in a EuroBasket game. Markkanen made 7 3-pointers in the route.
Markannen is also leading Finland in rebounds (7) and steals (3.9) per game.
On Monday, undefeated Finland will take on Tubelis and Lithuania, which is 2-1 in group stage.
Tubelis is averaging 8.7 points and 4.7 rebounds for Lithuania. Tubelis’ best game came in Lithuania’s win over Great Britain, where he scored 17 points to go with seven rebounds. Tubelis and teammate Jonas Valanciunas will be tasked with trying to slow down Markkanen.
Also in the same group is Sweden, led by Larsson. The former Arizona wing is averaging a team-high 16.5 PPG. Sweden, 1-2 in group play, plays Montenegro Monday.
EuroBasket has four groups of six teams, with the top four teams from each group advancing to knockout round. With two more group play games left to go, it’s possible that Finland, Lithuania and Sweden will all advance out of the same group.
