The coach of the Greek U-19 basketball team that will take part in the upcoming World Championship in New Zealand is optimistic about Greece’s chances.
George Vlasopoulos said to Neos Kosmos English Edition that the team aims high while stressing that they will be focusing on one game at a time.
The Greek team was in Melbourne this weekend playing in a four team tournament at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Center ahead of the FIBA U/19 World Championship in Auckland next week (read coverage on other sports pages).
Mr Vlasopoulos expressed his satisfaction with the team’s preparation so far although he did point out that a few players joined the rest of the group with some delay due to other obligations.
One of them was the almighty center of the team (2,12 m) Zisis Sarikopoulos who plays for Ohio State.
“But the team is getting there now and I think that after this tournament we’ll be ready,” explained Mr Vlasopoulos.
He suggested that one of the strengths of his team is its homogeneity as they have been playing together for a few years.
“The basic core of the team is intact since 2005 and with a few changes in the lineup we built up the team which won the European Championship in 2008,” Mr Vlasopoulos said.
At the same time he highlighted that one of its weakness is the lack of game time as most of the players during the regular season for their respective teams sit on the bench.
“Yet tournaments such as this one enable us to work on this deficiency,” he added.
In Auckland, Greece will be in the same group with Angola, Puerto Rico and Lithuania.
Mr Vlasopoulos indicated that with the first two teams although Greece has matched up successfully in the past “now we have to be cautious because some of their players are part of the NCAA (American Colleges Basketball league), and we are not sure of their full potential.”
Overall, Mr Vlasopoulos reiterated that although no team is guaranteed to win the cup, Greece is certainly expected,due to it’s past record, to do very well.