THE first round of the 2023 FIBA World Cup has wrapped up, and on the final day of this portion of the fixture, Slovenia claimed a 15-point win over Cape Verde.

The sixth day of play saw Slovenia look to complete a perfect first round, having won both of its first two outings. Led by NBA superstar Luka Doncic, the team had no troubles in its first pair of games, and came into Wednesday’s game against Cape Verde as favourites. The African nation is the lowest ranked side at the World Cup, and although it claimed a win a couple of days ago, it would take a special performance to make it back-to-back victories.

Although Slovenia managed to edge ahead early in the match, it was not as one-sided as many expected. Cape Verde showed it was up for the fight, pushing the ball inside and crashing the offensive glass to create scoring opportunities. Although Slovenia still led at the first break, but by just three points in a tight start to the game.

Doncic’s passing came to the fore as the game went on, setting up multiple plays to start off the second quarter. His ability to find the smallest of gaps and set his teammates up to score was mesmerising, and despite the defence’s best efforts, Slovenia found some seriously easy looks. However, Cape Verde was still hanging around, ensuring it was still game on heading into half time, despite the margin sitting at seven points.

Remarkably, Cape Verde tied things up in the opening minutes of the third quarter with some nice play inside the paint. Although momentum was on the African nation’s side, Slovenia wrestled back control of the game, putting an emphasis in forcing Cape Verde into shooting long range shot, while maintaining the consistency of its own offence, and led by 14 points at the final break.

Cape Verde tried valiantly to produce a miracle comeback win in the final term, producing its best offensive quarter of the match. However, it could not secure the defensive stops required to halt Slovenia’s offence and whittle away at the lead. Instead, Slovenia came away with a 92-77 triumph to head into the second round with some mometum.

Doncic top-scored for the winning side, although it was a bit of an off-night in terms of accuracy. He finished with 19 points on 5/17 shooting, but he also had nine assists, impacting the game in other ways. For Cape Verde, Betihno Gomes led the way offensively with 17 points on 6/11 shooting from the field.

The day’s remaining results saw Serbia produce a whopping 32-point win over South Suda, while Georgia downed Venezuela by 11 points. The United States dominated Jordan to claim a 48-point win, Brazil defeated Cote d’Ivoire by 12 points and Puerto Rico was 18 points too good for China. Greece downed New Zealand by nine points and Spain defeated Iran by 20 points.