By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Players available for Greece’s senior national team at the bottom end of the training camp are down to 14. Twelve will eventually make the cut for the final roster en route to the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
Kostas Antetokounmpo, a participant in the 2022 EuroBasket and the previous summer’s FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Victoria, was officially ruled out due to injury, the Hellenic Basketball Federation announced Sunday.
The latest healthy scratch was Vassilis Toliopoulos. His previous senior international experience was limited to caps in Qualifiers.
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Giannis Antetokounmpo was recently confirmed as out for the World Cup with experienced guards Nick Calathes and Kostas Sloukas missing as well.
The 14 remaining players are Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Lefteris Bochoridis, Manolis Hatzidakis, Panagiotis Kalaitzakis, Giannoulis Larentzakis, Michalis Lountzis, Konstantinos Mitoglou, Dimitris Moraitis, Giorgos Papagiannis, Kostas Papanikolaou, Ioannis Papapetrou, Nikos Rogkavopoulos, Giorgos Tsalmpouris, and Thomas Walkup.
Wrapping up the schedule of friendly games, Greece will travel to Abu Dhabi to face the USA Friday and Germany Saturday.
Switching to official action, the team coached by Dimitris Itoudis will take on Jordan, the USA, and New Zealand in Pasay’s Mall of Asia Arena between 26 and 30 August. The top two teams of all eight groups of the preliminary round, including Group C involving Greece, will be placed in Group J and compete for a berth in the Quarterfinals. The bottom two countries will instead continue in Group N to start the process of classification games and rank from 17th to 32nd.