By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Amar Alibegovic has signed a two-year contract to join Cedevita Olimpija, the team announced Wednesday.
Alibegovic, 27, is heading to a third straight campaign including the 7DAYS EuroCup, following 39 games played as a member of Virtus Segafredo Bologna the two last years.
Per the press release: “Cedevita Olimpija has strengthened its ranks with a new talented basketball player from the former Yugoslavia. The Dragons jersey will be worn by Amar Alibegović for the next two seasons, who has spent his entire professional career in Italy, and last season he was part of Virtus Segafredo Bologna, which won the 7DAYS EuroCup title.
Before the start of the 2022/23 competition season, 26-year-old talented Amar Alibegović, the son of the best scorer of the Slovenian men’s national team in official games, Teoman Alibegović, is moving to Ljubljana from the Italian Virtus Segafredo Bologna. Amar was born in the United States and spent his basketball childhood in Italy, where he played professionally for the last four seasons, and in the last two he competed with Virtus in the 7DAYS EuroCup.
“I am very happy to join the big club with a rich history. I can’t wait to get to Ljubljana, and that teammates and I start with the practices, and get as much wins as possible in all competitions,” said Amar Alibegović upon joining Cedevita Olimpija.
“Amar Alibegović is a very talented basketball player, we have been following him for quite some time, and we are happy that we managed to bring him to Ljubljana, where we will be able to follow him in the Cedevita Olimpija jersey for at least the next two seasons. He has experience playing in the 7DAYS EuroCup, and last but not least he won the title of champion of this competition with Virtus last season, so he will definitely be of great help to us in both international leagues in which we play. He is also pleased with the fact that he still has plenty of room to advance in all segments of his game, and we will be happy to follow his progress in the Dragons jersey,” said sports director of Cedevita Olimpija, Sani Bečirović. Head coach of the Dragons, Jurica Golemac, said: “We are very happy that we managed to convince Amar to join us at Cedevita Olimpija. He is a quality, young player who plays with a lot of energy and at the same time has a lot of experience. He knows Ljubljana well, and at the same time we know him. We are sure that we will have a great collaboration and that a good season together is ahead of us.”
After spending virtually his entire youth in Italy, where he grew up playing basketball in Rome’s Stella Azzurri, Amar Alibegović was educated in New York between 2014 and 2018 and was part of the St. John’s University team. In 2018, Alibegović signed a contract with the Virtus Roma team and promoted from the second to the first Italian league with the Italian team in the first season. In 2020, Alibegović transferred to Virtus Segafredo Bologna, where he remained until the end of the season, which is behind us.
With Bologna, Alibegović won the title of Italian national champion and the title of Italian super cup champion in 2021, and in the 2021/22 season, Virtus Bologna became the champion of the European Cup. In the 7DAYS EuroCup, he played in 18 matches, eight of which he started in the starting five of Virtus. He averaged 5.3 points, 2.4 rebounds and 0.6 assists. He played in 26 games in the Italian national championship, scoring 8.5 points and 4.0 rebounds per game.
Alibegović was part of the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina until the age of 20, and from 2019 onwards he is also part of the national team, for which he played in the qualifications for the World Championships in 2019 and 2023 and in the qualifications for EuroBasket 2022.”
Elsewhere in the EuroCup field, Turk Telekom picked up 31-year-old point guard Tony Taylor and the London Lions recruited swingman Mo Soluade, while Joventut inked Yannick Kraag to a four-year contract extension.
Photo Credit: EuroleagueBasketball.net