By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Cologne, Germany – After returning from a training camp injury and managing to make the 12-man roster of the French national team for the EuroBasket, center Moustapha Fall hopes to debut in the tournament soon.
Fall may play in the upcoming match of France vs. Lithuania, where his team will look to bounce back after a sloppy performance and loss to Germany in its opener. He didn’t participate in that game.
“I feel much better,” Fall told Eurohoops. “I’m getting in better shape every day. It’s the first week I really started playing. We’re taking it slow. Now we are talking with the coach about when I’m coming back. Maybe Saturday, maybe Sunday, we don’t know yet.”
France coach Vincent Collet said that Fall is doing “better and better” but it still can’t be determined whether he will play against Lithuania. His participation will likely be a game-time decision.
“I worked very hard all summer in rehab to be able to come back as soon as possible,” Fall said. “It was really close timing. I’m not going to say that I’m 100 percent ready but I’m in good shape. My hamstring is feeling good. And I hope it’s going to keep like that.”
Fall knew that he would register a DNP vs. Germany since he hadn’t yet reached an ideal level of condition that would allow his comeback.
“It was difficult to watch, especially in such a defeat. At the same time, this kind of result can build our character. Sometimes when you lose like that in the beginning it’s a wake-up call. You say that, OK we lose badly and now we’re going to step up. Show our character. I hope we will learn from this game.”
France had a particularly ugly game on offense, failing to make shots – even wide-open ones – and turning the ball a lot.
Apart from being a towering presence inside the paint, Fall can potentially add another dimension to France’s offensive game as an additional facilitator due to his passing aptitude. He displayed this kind of skill plenty last season as a player of Olympiacos Piraeus in the EuroLeague and the Greek League.
“We need to be better in offense,” Fall said. “For two minutes we lost our head and we lost by 13. It was a close game in the third quarter. There are some explanations. There are some new players, some young players. Nicolas Batum isn’t here, and Nando De Colo isn’t here. I came back injured. It’s a process.”