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China out of Men's Basketball Quarterfinals
China crashed out of the men's basketball quarterfinals on Monday in spite of a 85-67 victory over Italy in the last preliminary match at the Sydney Olympic Games.
China, led by Li Na's 25 points including six 3-points, lost the chance to enter the first eight competition it gained four years ago in fifth place at the group with two-win and tree-loss.
"We are really disappointed to miss the quarterfinals," Li Na said. "The chance comes once every four years. We are better team than before."
The Chinese team could won the berth of quaterfinals it didn't suffer a setback playing against France last week when China led 14 points with 11 minutes left before being comebacked by its opponent with 12 points. China finished the first half at 42-40 and enlarged the margin 66-55 with 10:30 minutes remaining. But Italy came back strongly and closed the gap to 69-70 before Li's consecutive 3-pointers which help China to a nine points victory. Italy, however, still ranked second in Group A with three-two wins and losses results behind America who won all five matches in the preliminaries.
"We played without concentration, we underestimated China. We stated the game so soft, playing not good deafens against their good shooters," said Andreaa Meneghin, coach of Italy.
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