Serbia Going All The Way

ISTANBUL (2010 FIBA World Championship) – It is approaching midnight on August 30, 2008, and the Serbian national basketball team have just hit a roadblock in their battle to return to basketball respectability.

Following their disastrous 2006 FIBA World Championship campaign, legendary coach Dusan Ivkovic has been brought in to resurrect Serbian basketball. Ivkovic looked to the future and went almost exclusively with a young and inexperienced line-up that would grow together – starting with qualification for the 2009 Eurobasket in Poland.

After an impressive 14-point win against the favoured Italy in the opening game, and a follow up thrashing of Hungary, things looked to be going as planned to re-join the elite of European basketball.

When Finland handed the Serbians that 80-77 defeat though, not even the great Ivkovic could have imagined that two years later they would be in the FIBA World Championship Semi Finals, as the runner up from the previous year’s Eurobasket.

But they are.

Can they go all they way? Juan Carlos Navarro thinks they can, and he knows what it takes to win a FIBA World Championship. “Serbia has a very young but a very talented team,” Navarro said.

“Their performance tonight and throughout the championship showed they have no fear, despite being so young. They are very talented and I think they can continue on.”

New Zealand coach Nenad Vucinic agrees they can claim gold in Istanbul. “I think Serbia has got a chance to win it, because they have a team that plays together, they have a very defence orientated team, and they’ve got a master coach who has got them playing way above their ability.

“I believe they have got enough playing ability, with a team attitude and a hustle attitude, they can surprise teams.”

Not surprisingly, Spanish coach Sergio Scariolo thinks having Milos Teodosic when the game is on the line is another reason they are such a danger to the crown. “He is a great player with a great feel for the big shot,” Spain coach Sergio Scariolo said. “We just have to say great shot to Milos.”

Teammate Nenad Krstic agrees. “Ten out of 10 times I'm going to give him the ball with one second to go and he's going to do something of it. He's crazy, he's going to take that shot like nobody else can.”

Teodosic though, was quick to share the love. “It’s hard to say what I was thinking about when I took that last shot,” he said. “But that shot would have meant nothing if my teammates had not fought so hard for 40 minutes.”

Teodisic also talked about the ability of so many of his teammates to step up and punish the opposition, and Ivkovic highlighted their all around ability from the perimeter, in contrast to when he first took over. “First year no one shoot it but Tripkovic. Tonight we scored 15 threes, we have six players score in double figures.”

Navarro agrees: “They were extremely accurate with their three point shots, we were not able to stop the long shots and that’s why we lost.”

The Serbians have shot just a tick under 40% from three point for the tournament, compared to just 33% at last year’s Eurobasket.

And while they only have three players shooting above 35% in this tournament – Rasic, Bjelica and Keselj – it seems a different player steps up each game to deliver daggers from beyond the arc if left open.

When Ivkovic took over the job he saw developing his team’s shooting prowess as a crucial part of the job. “Each open shot is a great shot. The tradition was that Serbian players were great shooters,” he said. “We worked more (with this team), we work hard on the technique of shooting.”

“This generation of players I start to work with to qualify for the European Championship. Three years ago I was happy just to say the team has so many young players. We worked hard, and the first year we qualified, the second year in Poland it was a great achievement to finish ahead of teams like Greece, France and Lithuania,” he added.

“They have worked hard for three summers, they deserve really this big success.”

After three years of work they now have two more nights in front of them, and Teodosic is wary of let down after such an enormous victory against Spain.

“Tonight was a great night, but we now have to forget everything that happened tonight as in two days we play a semi final,” he said.

“We have to come out and show exactly the same face of our team in the semi finals if we want to win.”

FIBA.org