Slovenia Redeem team upset biggest in bball history?

[xxax2]

Suddenly when we won we had the best team in the championship. LEL. Seriously its easy to be a general after the battle. Except for Dragic and Randolph the rest of the team plays no visible role in their teams, especially compared to other NT's. Doncic was a talent, no doubt, but nobody could have predicted he would deal with pressure the way he did. If i told you our bench would win in the last 4 mins against Serbia in the finals, everyone would laugh at me. The whole team overperformed so much its crazy and most guys played the best basketball of their careers.

Suddenly we have people who knew we were going to win it, because we had the best team talent wise. Yeah sure.

 

[DoMedalje2]

Suddenly when we won we had the best team in the championship. LEL. Seriously its easy to be a general after the battle. Except for Dragic and Randolph the rest of the team plays no visible role in their teams, especially compared to other NT's. Doncic was a talent, no doubt, but nobody could have predicted he would deal with pressure the way he did. If i told you our bench would win in the last 4 mins against Serbia in the finals, everyone would laugh at me. The whole team overperformed so much its crazy and most guys played the best basketball of their careers.

Suddenly we have people who knew we were going to win it, because we had the best team talent wise. Yeah sure.

@xaxx - I put 50eur on Slovenia ahead of the tournament - made 30x return (do the maths). Does that make me a general ahead of the battle? Happy to buy you a beer next time when I am in Slovenia...
Regardless, you missed the point - I didnt know that they will win, but I thought that the odds were understated as bookies I assume look at fiba rankings and historical results (which were in some cases result of bad luck).. I thought that France, Spain and Serbia were better.. for the rest it was arguable..
Doncic was 2 round euroleague MVP, thus an elite player coming into the tournament, for Blazic we knee he could play, Vidmar as well, Cancar had been drafted by NBA, Muric could play, Nikolic is an euroleague playmaker. An absolute surprise to me was Prepelic, Dimec, Zagorac overperformed as well... Given that they dominated Eurobasket, well that was a surprise. We knew that we had a good coach and crazy motivated Dragic. We didnt know that they would jell that well, kudos to Kokoskov.

Going forward, without Goran, Vidmar and presumably Randolph, this team stands no chance. I hope he changes his mind

 

[Terrorizer2]

Lol at the biggest upset in the history of Eurobasket . Slovenia came with their best squad that they could gather also they naturalized american player just before the start of the tournament while Serbia,Spain,France and some other countries have missed lots of great players, I would call this Slovenian team the weakest champion in modern history of the European basketball. The biggest upset is Russia beating Spain on their own turf, that was the great Spain team loosing a real underdog team . You were lucky that this was the weakest Eurobasket ever, congratulation on your title but don't start BS topic like this one. It is so stupid.

Calling Russia-2007 "a real underdog team" is either a sign of major bias (possible since you and some of your cz fanboy colleagues are always writing shit about Russia and its basketball) or major ignorance. Yes, everyone (rightly) considered Spain a heavy favourite in the finals and, yes, they did have a better team than we had. But Russia was definitely viewed as a potential medal contender, there was no great surprise that Russia made it into finals and while the roster itself was rather thin it had enough quality in its ranks. I can only quote Alyosha12 "Are you seriously saying a Russia team, lead by a prime Andrei Kirilenko, prime Khryapa, and prime Holden, with Monia, Ponkrashov, Bykov, Pashutin, Savrasenko all being legit Euroleague players, with key roles on their teams is worse then Slovenia 2017?"

And, frankly, that shit with the "worst Eurobasket in history" and naming absences is funny. You just take it too much to your heart that heavily favoured Serbia which had a much, much better team on paper than Slovenia lost its greatest chance to win a title. I didn't really like this Eurobasket also, especially since many teams played in a retardo-ball with their stars being far too prominent (having 6 players, including 5 playing for quarterfinals participants, scoring more than 20 is not a good sign), but Eurobasket-2017 was just a middling one, definitely not the best, definitely not the worst (not to look too far 2013 was worse).

when you look by the names even then Slovenia had better team than Serbia and probably 90% of the teams on this tournament

Good joke, mate. Vidmar most probably won't make it to the final Serbian roster, even having all the absences in mind (or maybe he could Stimac for the third string center title). Dimec, friggin Dimec, was a rotation player for Slovenia. Nikolic and Cancar were not exclusively for the purposes of warming the bench and getting dubious towel-throwing experience. They need Prepelic to score in double figures, I mean, Prepelic is a good, very much underrated player, I like him a lot, but he was the third main offensive option of this team. Hell, they even had Zagorac in the squad. They were only slightly better than some Germany, not to talk about "90% of the teams on this tournament".

And everybody who says that this Slovenian team misses Udrih (well, they were blessed he almost never came in his prime, they are mega-blessed that he didn't change his mind now when he is totally atrocious) and Vujacic (I mean, for real, Vujacic, that very guy who even some three years ago was not needed by anyone more powerful than Istanbul BB team) needs a major reality check.

- team would have been if it was gathered with all the talents the second best team in Europe by quality of players beetween 2005-2010

Bullshit. Slovenia has a lot of good to great quality among their late 70s to early 80s born players but still this is bullshit. At the very least Spain and France were significantly better.

- bookies had it 30 to 1 - based on past results, which involved an immense amount of bad luck to start with.

Nope, bookies don't rely on something like bad luck and even former achievements or fails are not high on their list of decisive factors.

If you look at the quality of the squad, this should have been top 4 team

Oh my goodness. Ok, let's take, for example, Spain, France, Greece and Serbia. Which of these squads have worse quality than Slovenia? And I can definitely name some others which don't look worse than Slovenian one for me. How many players with non-marginal top-level club experience did Slovenia have? I'm not even saying only NBA and EL-level (though many teams in this Eurobasket weren't poor on that) but even something like former pre-reform EuroCup play-off participant will do? Five? Six? Well, there were many teams whose whole rotations were composed out of the players of this caliber. And reasonable Slovenian fans seem to agree with me

- the team is solid - it does consist of 3 oustanding players (Doncic is outstanding by now), and it had additions of European level roleplayers that are young, hungry and on the up

Well, I'm not saying that this Slovenia is a totally lousy team. We can say that it is even solid with some stretch. Quality of the first 7-8 rotation players is decent/solid but, not even mentioning having Dimec and Zagorac in the squad, you have to take into account that there were many teams which are significantly better than simply solid. I would put Slovenia somewhere arond 8th or 9th place if we have to judge by the strength of the rosters only.

In the end, this was a great, great upset and to get this reality all that clear, just like Alyosha12 already noted, you only need to look back to what was the 'vox populi' about Slovenian chances for championship before the start of this tournament.

 

[Srle2]

Don't give me prime this prime that crap, Russian NT was nowhere to find until that triumph in 2007, before that , last medal they have won was in 1998 at WC . Russia was the great underdog in 2007 , playing against world champions in the finals on their home court, I personally didn't have Russia as top 3 teams going into the tournament, to be precise I didn't have them in the top 6 best teams that year , big respect for what they achieve that year even though they had foreigner hitting the winning shot for them.

Serbia wasn't favorite in the finals this year , that team have missed 4,5 players from the Olympic final and few other players that could make this year squad while Slovenia had their best players available plus instant American enforcement. The fact is that this was the weakest Eurobasket in years , thanks to that Russia was able to get that 4th place , I understand why you are defending this tournament so hard, but you are totally wrong and you know it

 

[ThePeraCar2]

Calling Russia-2007 "a real underdog team" is either a sign of major bias (possible since you and some of your cz fanboy colleagues are always writing shit about Russia and its basketball) or major ignorance. Yes, everyone (rightly) considered Spain a heavy favourite in the finals and, yes, they did have a better team than we had. But Russia was definitely viewed as a potential medal contender, there was no great surprise that Russia made it into finals and while the roster itself was rather thin it had enough quality in its ranks. I can only quote Alyosha12 "Are you seriously saying a Russia team, lead by a prime Andrei Kirilenko, prime Khryapa, and prime Holden, with Monia, Ponkrashov, Bykov, Pashutin, Savrasenko all being legit Euroleague players, with key roles on their teams is worse then Slovenia 2017?"

And, frankly, that shit with the "worst Eurobasket in history" and naming absences is funny. You just take it too much to your heart that heavily favoured Serbia which had a much, much better team on paper than Slovenia lost its greatest chance to win a title. I didn't really like this Eurobasket also, especially since many teams played in a retardo-ball with their stars being far too prominent (having 6 players, including 5 playing for quarterfinals participants, scoring more than 20 is not a good sign), but Eurobasket-2017 was just a middling one, definitely not the best, definitely not the worst (not to look too far 2013 was worse).


Good joke, mate. Vidmar most probably won't make it to the final Serbian roster, even having all the absences in mind (or maybe he could Stimac for the third string center title). Dimec, friggin Dimec, was a rotation player for Slovenia. Nikolic and Cancar were not exclusively for the purposes of warming the bench and getting dubious towel-throwing experience. They need Prepelic to score in double figures, I mean, Prepelic is a good, very much underrated player, I like him a lot, but he was the third main offensive option of this team. Hell, they even had Zagorac in the squad. They were only slightly better than some Germany, not to talk about "90% of the teams on this tournament".

And everybody who says that this Slovenian team misses Udrih (well, they were blessed he almost never came in his prime, they are mega-blessed that he didn't change his mind now when he is totally atrocious) and Vujacic (I mean, for real, Vujacic, that very guy who even some three years ago was not needed by anyone more powerful than Istanbul BB team) needs a major reality check.


Bullshit. Slovenia has a lot of good to great quality among their late 70s to early 80s born players but still this is bullshit. At the very least Spain and France were significantly better.


Nope, bookies don't rely on something like bad luck and even former achievements or fails are not high on their list of decisive factors.


Oh my goodness. Ok, let's take, for example, Spain, France, Greece and Serbia. Which of these squads have worse quality than Slovenia? And I can definitely name some others which don't look worse than Slovenian one for me. How many players with non-marginal top-level club experience did Slovenia have? I'm not even saying only NBA and EL-level (though many teams in this Eurobasket weren't poor on that) but even something like former pre-reform EuroCup play-off participant will do? Five? Six? Well, there were many teams whose whole rotations were composed out of the players of this caliber. And reasonable Slovenian fans seem to agree with me


Well, I'm not saying that this Slovenia is a totally lousy team. We can say that it is even solid with some stretch. Quality of the first 7-8 rotation players is decent/solid but, not even mentioning having Dimec and Zagorac in the squad, you have to take into account that there were many teams which are significantly better than simply solid. I would put Slovenia somewhere arond 8th or 9th place if we have to judge by the strength of the rosters only.

In the end, this was a great, great upset and to get this reality all that clear, just like Alyosha12 already noted, you only need to look back to what was the 'vox populi' about Slovenian chances for championship before the start of this tournament.

you are right Serbia had better squad, so you are saying injured Jovic is better than Dragic, Micic is better than Doncic, and ofcourse Macvan is better than Randolph, mate go watch hockey thats Russian sport

 

[Killer Bob2]

you are right Serbia had better squad, so you are saying injured Jovic is better than Dragic, Micic is better than Doncic, and ofcourse Macvan is better than Randolph,

I can continue for you, Prepelic is better than Bogdanovic, Vidmar is better than Marjanovic, Dimec is better than Kuzmic, Zagorac is better than Lucic, Cancar is better than Milosavljevic, Muric is better than Guduric... And Doncic missed almost whole second half and the consequence was, Dragic missed last 5 minutes too. yes Serbia missed many players, but the fact is they had the easiest draw off all. And in the end it’s not about who was missing but who has won Eurobasket.

 

[ThePeraCar2]

I can continue for you, Prepelic is better than Bogdanovic, Vidmar is better than Marjanovic, Dimec is better than Kuzmic, Zagorac is better than Lucic, Cancar is better than Milosavljevic, Muric is better than Guduric... And Doncic missed almost whole second half and the consequence was, Dragic missed last 5 minutes too. yes Serbia missed many players, but the fact is they had the easiest draw off all. And in the end it’s not about who was missing but who has won Eurobasket.

how good this Eurobasket was we can see by simply looking at attendance at the games
you can keep on dreaming

 

[Killer Bob2]

how good this Eurobasket was we can see by simply looking at attendance at the games
you can keep on dreaming

I wonder what you and some others would have written if Serbia had won. But be my guest and think whatever you want.

 

[pohani komarac2]

Suddenly when we won we had the best team in the championship. LEL. Seriously its easy to be a general after the battle.

No you did not have best team there, but it was not imposible at all and biggest upset. Basketball is not math, your 12th plyer can be Donald Duck if your first 3 are Dragić, Dončić and Radolph, you still have chance to win games. Role players can be lover quality if star players are great. Serbia only has Bogdanović on pair with Slovenias 3 stars so it's not an upset despite Serbian role players bit better. Only major upset from Slovenia was beating Spain. But it can happen in one day, Slovenia had great shooting day, Spain poor.

I'm not general after battle, I wrote here during preps Slovenia is an elite team

 

[Alyosha122]

Don't give me prime this prime that crap, Russian NT was nowhere to find until that triumph in 2007, before that , last medal they have won was in 1998 at WC . Russia was the great underdog in 2007 , playing against world champions in the finals on their home court, I personally didn't have Russia as top 3 teams going into the tournament, to be precise I didn't have them in the top 6 best teams that year , big respect for what they achieve that year even though they had foreigner hitting the winning shot for them.

Serbia wasn't favorite in the finals this year , that team have missed 4,5 players from the Olympic final and few other players that could make this year squad while Slovenia had their best players available plus instant American enforcement. The fact is that this was the weakest Eurobasket in years , thanks to that Russia was able to get that 4th place , I understand why you are defending this tournament so hard, but you are totally wrong and you know it

Oh FFS, did you even watch basketball back then? I mean seriously, did you? Russia in 2005 were a very good team, who were unlucky to meet Greece in the 1/4 finals. The same Greece would latter on become champions. It was also the same Greek team, that did only 1 year latter shock the USA dream team in the WC semi finals.

In 2007 Russia also got a new coach named Blatt. Before that they changed coaches every year. Also in 2009 please go check the team roster. No more Kirilenko, no more Holden, no more Khryapa...

 

[usagre2]

Oh FFS, did you even watch basketball back then? I mean seriously, did you? Russia in 2005 were a very good team, who were unlucky to meet Greece in the 1/4 finals. The same Greece would latter on become champions. It was also the same Greek team, that did only 1 year latter shock the USA dream team in the WC semi finals.

In 2007 Russia also got a new coach named Blatt. Before that they changed coaches every year. Also in 2009 please go check the team roster. No more Kirilenko, no more Holden, no more Khryapa...

Let's not make that Russian team out to be some juggernaut either. You failed to mention how that exact same Russian team and coach lost to every team they played the following year at the '08 Olympics except for beating Iran. They were a good team who pulled a huge upset in 2007 not some powerhouse.

 

[Terrorizer2]

you are right Serbia had better squad, so you are saying injured Jovic is better than Dragic, Micic is better than Doncic, and ofcourse Macvan is better than Randolph, mate go watch hockey thats Russian sport

Your clumsy attempt at being sarcastic fails as Killer Bob already answered it with much more of a similar 'fake comparisons'. The truth is that all players in this Serbian squad would be candidates for the place in this Slovenian team while only 4-5 Slovenians have a shot for similar thing considering Serbian roster with only three of them being locks. I wonder how so many CZ fans on these boards are not only obviously terribly biased (childishly dismissing this Eurobasket as the weakest one after their team failed to win it) but also completely clueless about the game so popular in Serbia. Mate, go watch some tennis since it's a sport in which you don't lose against Slovenians at least.

Also the fact that people like Srle and you are so fast to make disparaging remarks towards Russia and Russian basketball (and I want to remind you that we have a tradition of excellence in this game which even Yugoslavia can't rival) is especially disgusting since so many people in this country, me included, view Serbs as not only our Orthodox brethren but also as our main friends in all the world.

I'm done for this discussion. Believe what you want. That Russia will be 21th in a proper EuroBasket (yet in all the power rankings before this very EuroBasket we also were 15th-17th, below Georgia, Germany and similar teams, and still Russia finished fourth), that this was the weakest EuroBasket ever, that Serbia played with its F team, that Slovenia had a better roster than Serbia and the former was viewed as a favourite to win it all before the tournament's start.

 

[CoachZ2]

This discussion is going nowhere and has no point anyway. Slovenia has won the Eurobasket as not one of the primary favorites so therefore it was an upset. Is it the biggest ever? I would say no, since Germany in 1993 will probably never be topped. I would put it in the range of Greece in 2005, they were good but few expected them to be the primary favorite and win it.

Regarding who was missing, that is also stupid to discuss. You can't play tournaments with imaginary players. It's not Kokoshkov's fault or Dragic's that some of our players don't think it's important to play for the NT. A good sportsman would congratulate Slovenia on their success and then move on and look forward to the future tournaments.

 

[Straight forward2]

Suddenly when we won we had the best team in the championship. LEL. Seriously its easy to be a general after the battle. Except for Dragic and Randolph the rest of the team plays no visible role in their teams, especially compared to other NT's. Doncic was a talent, no doubt, but nobody could have predicted he would deal with pressure the way he did. If i told you our bench would win in the last 4 mins against Serbia in the finals, everyone would laugh at me. The whole team overperformed so much its crazy and most guys played the best basketball of their careers.

It's says a lot about current level of FIBA BB as well. Sure Dragic is great, Doncic played like prodigy and Randolf is a good player, but that's it, it was enough to win in it all...

Imagine such picture in the middle of 00's. Such team would never had one EC. Teams were stacked. Teams like Spain, Lithuania, Greece, ect.had not 3 world class players (elite EL players or NBA players), but more like 7-9. To me it's nearly a miracle that Slovenia won it (they failed badly with much more talented teams in 00s), but such things happen these days. F.e. Lithuania now have only 3 truly world class players, but we still hanged somewhat at the top in recent years (2010-2015). Times are changing for the worst or maybe just a weak decade. Only Spain and relatively France, Serbia were able to maintain the level of 00's.