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Nikos Galis, Greece
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talk![]() But all that changed with the arrival of Nikos Galis into the Greek national side and the fact that the 1987 championship would be hosted on Greek soil. Galis, who was arguably the top scorer in the history of European basketball, came together with fellow guard Panagiotis Yiannakis, center Panagiotis Fassoulas and power forward Fanis Christodolou in a formidable line-up. After an inauspicious start, which included two preliminary round losses, the Greeks clicked into gear beating Italy in the quarter-finals (90-78), Yugoslavia in the semis (81-77) and faced the Soviet Union in the final. The gold medal game was played in front of 17,000 Greek fans, and it proved to be a thriller. Galis scored 40 points for Greece, but it was forward Kamburis was the hero. His 2 last second free throws gave Greece a last-gasp overtime victory and the finest hour in the country’s basketball history."
Ibn Notes:
Galis in the NCAA: So Galis enrolled in Union Hill High School and became a
crucial and irreplaceable player. Important New York colleges began to show an
interest in him, but Galis finally ended up with the Seton Hall Pirates. There
he got the number 11 vest and became a crucial player fairly quickly. But the
lack of other good players prevented Galis' team from reaching any NCCA finals
in the 4 years that he was playing there. In his fourth and final year, Galis,
by now a shooting guard, saw his points average reach 27.5 and his name ranked
third among the leading NCCA scorers, behind the great Larry Bird and Balder.
When he left Seton Hall, his name was on nearly every record scoring list in the
college. |
Name: Nikos Georgalis Nickname: Nik the Greek Born: July 23, 1957 Status: Retired Origin: New Jersey, USA Height: 6-0/1,83 Weight: 80kg Schools: Seton Hall Drafted: 1979, Fourth Round, 68th overall pick by the Boston Celtics Languages: English, Greek Website: InterBasket & www.omiros.de Teams (jersey): Hellas National Team, IBN Dream Team (First Team) Ibn Notes: The child of a poor immigrant family from Rhodes, Greece, Nikos Galis was the fourth and last child, but was destined to become the best.... following in his father's footsteps, Galis took up boxing in his early years, his father George Georgalis having been a very good boxer in his youth. Fearful of seeing him come home with his face covered in blood, his mother, Stella Georgali intervened to persuade him to take up something else. He didn't find rugby attractive, so he took up the other most popular sport in the New Jersey neighborhoods: basketball. In an interview for the magazine "Triponto" some years ago he said "In our neighborhood I would always play the older boys and beat them. I would rarely lose whether I was playing boys my own age or older! Ibn Facts: Back in 1991, FIBA named Nikos Galis as one of FIBA's 50 Greatest Players with the likes of other international basketball legends Arvydas Sabonis, Drazen Petrovic, Dino Meneghin, Juan Antonio Corbalan, Oscar Schmidt, Teo Cruz, Sergei Belov, Modestas Paulauskas, Toni Kukoc, Alexander Volkov, and Vlade Divac among others... the list was determined by votes from a group of international experts and coaches. |
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Nikos Galis Links From our forum: Articles and other resources: A New Generation of Stars: History of Eurobasket (Fiba.com) |