By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
In an ideal world, every national team should announce their final roster at least for the upcoming FIBA World Cup qualifiers this weekend. That’s not the case for most of them and especially for the Greek national team.
“We will wait until the last moment for the final roster”, said Dimitris Itoudis who was missing Giannis Antetokounmpo, Giorgos Papagiannis, and Ioannis Papapetrou in the game against Turkey. Starting with Giannis who suffered from discomfort on his back, an MRI exam was done late Friday night, however, it’s considered just a precautionary measure, and at this point, his presence especially in the upcoming Eurobasket is not in danger.
Nobody knows what to expect on the other side with Papagiannis and Papapetrou. Both of them will try to make it to the Eurobasket, there’s restrained optimism in both cases, however, it seems that both of them will be out of the FIBA World Cup qualifiers games against Serbia in Belgrade Belgium in Athens.
Due to this situation, previously cut forward Giannis Kouzeloglou was called back to the roster. That’s why Itoudis used among other things in the game against Turkey Thanasis Antetokounmpo in the five positions and an extremely small ball lineup with three guards (Calathes, Sloukas, Dorsey) and captain Kostas Papanikolaou at the power forward position.
“Are we prepared for everything? No, but the game itself is alive and gives you answers”, said Itoudis who has won the EuroLeague twice on the club level but he is a rookie on national team timeframes. “The time available is totally different for a national team and we are trying to do the best we can. We have worked some of those things in practice and what I can promise is that we will fight because we have the support of a whole country and we will do our best. We have seen in this tournament our players grown into men”.