Great Britain lost their second game in two days at the EuroBasket finals in Milan, suffering a 86-65 defeat by Croatia.
GB played a strong first half against a team they have never beaten, but were doomed to another heavy loss when they lost the third quarter 35-9.
Myles Hesson led GB’s scoring with 18 points and Patrick Whelan scored 14 after coming on late in the game.
GB’s next game is on Monday, when they take on the group’s top seeds Greece.
“We played well in the first half and badly in the second,” said Hesson. “We didn’t give ourselves a chance to win the game with the way we played the third quarter.”
Great Britain’s performance in the first half was vastly improved from their opening-day defeat against Ukraine, when they turned the ball over 20 times and lost by 29 points.
The scoring of veterans Hesson and Gabe Olaseni, and the hard work of Carl Wheatle, ensured Croatia had to dig deep for their 37-31 half-time advantage.
That evaporated in the third quarter as Croatia turned the screw, forcing GB to take both their timeouts early as they lost the quarter by 26 points after scoring just two points in the first five minutes.
Standings
| Ukraine | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | +30 |
| Greece | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | +8 |
| Croatia | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | +17 |
| Italy | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | +17 |
| Estonia | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -22 |
| Great Britain | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -50 |
GB’s Group C schedule (times BST): Mon 5 Sep v Greece 16:00; Tue 6 Sep v Estonia 13:15; Thu 8 Sep v Italy (20:00).
