Collet: All Hands On Deck
30.01.2011
By Jeff Taylor
France coach Vincent Collet believes his national side couldn't have asked for a tougher path to the knockout stages of EuroBasket 2011.
The draw for the event was held on Sunday night in Lithuania and Collet spoke to Basketball World News immediately after discovering the outcome that has France in Group B with Serbia, Germany, Israel, Italy and Latvia.
Should they progress, they will clash in the cross-over with teams from a Group A that include defending champions Spain, Turkey, hosts Lithuania, Great Britain, Poland and an additional qualifying team.
"I'm not sure if this draw is that good," Collet said. "I think the first round, we play against all very good teams.
"And I think for the fourth, fifth and sixth groups of seedings, we got the best one from each.
"I think Israel, Italy for the fifth one and Latvia for the sixth one so far me, that's the most difficult for us.
"We're going to play against good teams every day. As we know the competition will be very long, much more so than other competitions, and this is going to be one very important point for success.
"The main problem is to be in the top two from the first round.
"This gives you the best chance of going to the quarter-finals, especially because we are going to cross with Group A which is for me, the best (hardest) one."
Collet didn't have the luxury of several NBA players that would have helped Les Bleus immeasurably last summer at the FIBA World Championship in Turkey.
Tony Parker, Ronny Turiaf, Joakim Noah, Mickael Pietrus and Rodrigue Beaubois were unable to play for a myriad of reasons.
What are the lessons he learned from 2010, when France lost in the first knockout game to Turkey?
"The first lesson I learned is that you need to have your best players to have the best chance, especially at a European Championship where the level is really very high and the second one is to have a very good preparation because the competition is long and you must fight day after day," Collet said.
"You may be good one game, two games - but it's not enough.
"I think we need to have a real bench to be able to reach our goal which is to go very far.
"So it's very important that we have a complete group because when I see the draw tonight, already to go to the quarter-finals, it will be eight battles and to be alive after these eight battles, you need to have a real team."
As for Group B, Collet says no team will be taken lightly, especially Serbia.
A young Germany are also on the way up.
"For sure," Collet said. "You know, two years ago (EuroBasket 2009 in Poland), Dirk Nowitzki was not there and it was very difficult to beat them.
"They were young guys and we didn't know them at this time. Since then, they have improved and now we know how good they could be.
"Serbia? For sure they went to the Semi-Finals last year at the World Championship and were finalists two years ago at the European Championship and they also have a young team, improving each year with Coach (Dusan) Ivkovic.
"We know that Serbia will be the favorite team of the group but there are three qualified teams."
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