Turkey, Slovenia advance at worlds

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Turkey used a 21-4 run spanning the second and third quarters on Sunday to eliminate France from the basketball world championship with a 95-77 win.

TrueHoop: Turkey Delights Home Crowd

A crowd of 15,500 Turkish fans sang their hearts out for the home team on Sunday, and the national team returned the love with a convincing win over France, writes Chris Sheridan. Blog
•  Bad start dooms Aussies vs. Slovenia

Phoenix Suns forward Hedo Turkoglu scored 20 points and Sinan Guler added 17 for Turkey, which played its first tournament game in the new Sinan Erdem Dome. A nearly capacity crowd of 15,000 -- including 22 members of the Turkish national soccer team sitting courtside -- watched the home team make shoot 35 of 55 from the field in the round of 16 game.

Boris Diaw of the Charlotte Bobcats led France with 21 points, and Nando de Colo added 15.

Turkey plays Slovenia on Wednesday in the quarterfinals.

Slovenia 87, Australia 58

Jaka Lokovic scored 19 points and Slovenia hit 16 of 33 3-pointers to eliminate Australia.

Lokovic's corner 3-pointer in the game's opening seconds sparked a 12-0 run and Slovenia never looked back. Primoz Brezec of the Milwaukee Bucks had 12 points and Goran Dragic added 10 points and eight assists for Slovenia.

Slovenia's guards cut into Australia's interior defense all game for easy looks or passes to wide-open perimeter shooters.

"We did a poor job of getting to their 3-point shooters," Australian coach Brett Brown said. "We pride ourselves for playing hard, tough defense. We don't have great athletes, we aren't very quick."

Australia didn't score until Joseph Ingles' layup 4½ minutes into the game. Australia's 6-foot-6 Brad Newley blocked 6-10 center Gaspar Vidmar's two-handed dunk from behind as time ran out in the first quarter with Slovenia leading 16-8.

"We chased the whole game, defensively, offensively from start to finish," Brown said.

Lakovic led Slovenia with 11 points in the first half as Slovenia hit 8 of 17 3s.

"Our tactic was to shoot a lot from 3-point because the Australia defense was playing very tight" inside, Slovenian coach Mehmed Becirovic said.

The Australians, meanwhile, couldn't get on track. When Patrick Mills of the Portland Trail Blazers threw up an airball with seconds left in the half it was the seventh miss of seven 3-point attempts for the Boomers in the half. Australia made only 18 of 58 from the field for the game.

Ingles and Mills had 13 apiece for Australia.

Slovenia made 5 of 8 three-pointers in the third quarter to build a 71-45 lead. Lakovic and guards Sani Becirovic and Dragic continued to carve into the Australia's defense. Slovenia finished with 18 assists to five for Australia.

"There's not much to say when you look at these stat sheets," Australia forward Matthew Nielson said.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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