Ukraine's national basketball team has a new head coach

Experienced Ainars Bagatskis will become the new head coach of the Ukrainian men's national basketball team. The 57-year-old Latvian has already worked as the head coach of the Ukrainian men's national team for three and a half years. The Latvian first took charge of the team in May 2019. During this time, he managed to qualify for the 2022 European Championships by winning his qualifying group.

Bagatskis also led the Ukrainian national team to the EuroBasket 2022 playoffs, where the national team stopped at the 1/8 finals. As a result, Ukraine took 11th place in the tournament.

In total, Bagatskis played 24 official matches at the helm of the Ukrainian men's national team, winning 13 and losing 11.

Bagatskis will replace Vitaliy Stepanovskiy, who has completed his work with the Ukrainian national team. Bagatskis previously worked for Ukrainian clubs: Kryvbas, Budivelnyk, and Kyiv-Basketball. He also led the national and youth national teams of Latvia, and at the club level worked as a head coach in Latvia, Georgia, Turkey, Russia, Israel, Germany, and Romania.

After the 2023 World Cup qualifiers, the Latvian specialist's contract with the Ukrainian Basketball Federation expired. Now Bagatskis will resume working with the Ukrainian national team, which is expected to play the final two matches of the EuroBasket 2025 qualifiers. As a reminder, the Ukrainian national team will play against Slovenia (February 21) and Portugal (February 24).

According to the qualification format, the top three teams in each group, with the exception of the groups that include the co-hosts of EuroBasket 2025 (Cyprus, Finland, Poland, and Latvia), will advance to the final round. In the groups that include the host countries, the host and two other teams that took the highest places will be eligible to participate in EuroBasket.

Ukraine retains its chances to play in the European Championship next summer: to do so, it needs to win the remaining two games in February, and the Israeli national team, in turn, must win the match against Portugal.

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