We always seem to have a thread for our b-ball NT heading towards major tournaments and with Duda picking his squad for the qualifiers this summer, I figured it was time for the next one.
15/8 Iceland - Serbia
18/8 Serbia - Montenegro
21/8 Slovakia - Serbia
24/8 Serbia - Estonia
27/8 Israel - Serbia
30/8 Serbia - Iceland
2/9 Montenegro - Serbia
5/9 Serbia - Slovakia
8/9 Estonia - Serbia
11/9 Serbia - Israel
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Nice schedule, good chance to see some b-ball during the summer for those of us who will be there. :thumbsup:
Top 2 qualify as well as the 4 best third placed teams.
Now give us your full analysis DZ and other experts. I see a fair number of younger players there like Nedovic, Musli, Andjusic, Jaramaz, Milutinovic, Lucic. Also slightly older newcomers in Dabovic and Jeremic.
Who's missing from the list except for guys like Milicic?
Novica btw very important for Real towards the end of the season. Good news for our NT as last year we missed him a lot.
´SERBIA
If Serbia beat Estonia on Saturday, they will secure third place at minimum, yet if one of Sweden, Belgium or Turkey does not lose on the same day, it would remain to be seen if Serbia's win/loss percentage would be good enough to qualify as that depends on other groups.
If Dusan Ivkovic's team then also beat Israel in the last game, they would finish second and qualify automatically.
If Serbia were to fall to Estonia, but by less than 25 points, they would need to beat Israel by 13 or more points on the last day to finish second.
Worst case scenario: Serbia to lose to Estonia by more than 25 and for Israel to beat Slovakia and Estonia to also overcome Iceland. They would then need to beat Israel by 13 or more to finish third and hope for the best, otherwise the Blues would finish fourth.´
At least we have a year to sort out our problems. To miss out on not just the EC, but the WC in two years as well could have been fatal for our basketball in the short to medium term.
Bjelica has indeed been tearing it up at Caja Laboral lately. Hope Tripko manages to come back, though it might be too late for that. We lack long-distance shooters next to Keselj and arguably Andjusic.
Clubs don´t feel confident hiring him with all his injuries and whatnot. Hope he returns to Partizan, say about Vujosevic what you will, but he´s a good coach and could very well help Novica get back to his level.
Great game from our young team, defense was on a very high level. Krle-Nedovic-Bjelica are going to be pivotal for us this tournament, let's hope Bogdanovic, Andjusic and Katic find their groove. Markovic is underrated, he does so much work which hardly gets noticed. Kalinic especially and Micic as well were a bit nervous, but they should get past that sooner rather than later. Still, I am quite confused: how were our players able to give it everything they got, when most of them weren't singing the anthem prior to the match?
Duda is a manager we have been lucky to have all these years. All the best to him, he deserves all the accolades he gets.
While Sale was a great player, I do not have enough faith in his coaching capabilities to have him be the manager of the NT. I'd prefer Kokoskov or Sasa Obradovic myself, perhaps with Milojevic as assistent.
Well, let's hope he shows his mettle, because I'm afraid Krstic won't be able to play that many minutes. Seems bringing 4 centres was a good thing after all