Slovenia Redeem team upset biggest in bball history?

[Killer Bob]

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.

[ThePeraCar]

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 Bob]

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 komarac]

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

[Alyosha12]

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...

[usagre]

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.

[Terrorizer]

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.

[CoachZ]

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 forward]

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.