By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Launching the offseason, Promitheas extended the contract of head coach Ilias Papatheodorou until the end of the 2024-25 season.
The team based in Patras announced a contract extension for the Greek tactician on Wednesday.
Papatheodorou, 48, is projected to add to his success in the Basketball Champions League. Heading to the 2024-25 installment of FIBA Europe’s top-tier club continental competition, he has 46 wins between Promitheas and previous BCL spells with fellow Greek clubs, PAOK from 2017 to 2019 and AEK from 2019 to 2021. He ranks second on the all-time list, trailing only two-time champion Txus Vidorreta.
Taking over Promitheas before the 2023-24 season, his side progressed to the Quarterfinals of the Champions League. An exit in the Quarterfinals of Greece’s Stoiximan Basket League Playoffs and reaching the Semifinals of the Greek Cup illustrated his efforts at the domestic level.
The native of Athens introduced himself to the coaching stage working at the junior level and later as an assistant at Athinaikos between 1995 and 2002. Hired as a head coach by Larissaikos in 2002, he went on to Markopoulo and Kifissia, before moving abroad to coach Astana in 2016. Back in Greece, jobs at AEK and PAOK led to a spell with Kolossos H Hotels in 2022-23.
At the international level, Papatheodorou has been the selector of the senior national team of Switzerland since 2021. In his home country, he was an assistant under Rick Pitino at the senior level, after working as the head coach of various junior national teams from 2013 to 2018, winning gold medals in the 2017 U20 European Championship and the 2015 U18 European Championship.