In a EuroBasket game with Arizona Wildcat blood on both sides, Estonia guard Kerr Kriisa led all scorers with 20 points on 8-for-11 shooting in his team's 83-62 loss to Italy.
Heading into his junior season as Arizona's starting point guard, Kriisa also hit 4 of 6 3-pointers for his national team while dishing six assists to five turnovers in the game at Assago, Italy.
Kriisa was directly facing one of his UA point guard predecessors, Nico Mannion, while UA assistant coach Riccardo Fois was sitting on Italy's bench in his role as an assistant coach for the Italian national team this summer.
Born in Italy but raised mostly in Utah and Arizona, Mannion had 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting, missing all four 3-pointers he tried.
Italy led just 21-18 after one quarter but outscored Estonia 31-15 in the second quarter and led comfortably the rest of the way.
"We always have one bad stretch and after that it's really hard to come back but we showed heart," Kriisa said in the postgame press conference. "We just gotta keep believe and keep playing."
With his production and characteristic on-court flare, Kriisa ignited the Estonian fans who had traveled to Italy to watch the team play.
"We always believe that fans are sixth man on the court," Kriisa said. "Small country, stuff like that, so the support we get we need everything out of it. We need to take advantage of it."
Kriisa and Estonia next will face Ukraine on Saturday at 8 a.m. in a game that will be carried on ESPN Plus. The entire EuroBasket schedule can be found here.
In others EuroBasket game Friday involving former Wildcats:
-- Center Dusan Ristic had 11 points and six rebounds for Serbia in its 100-76 win over the Netherlands. Ristic is playing behind NBA All-Star Nikola Jokic, who had 19 points and six rebounds for the Serbians.
-- Forward Lauri Markkanen had 33 points and 12 rebounds in Finland's 89-87 loss to Israel.
