By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Following the dismissal of Andreas Pistiolis, Galatasaray Nef hired Zvezdan Mitrovic.
Mitrovic, 53, inked a contract until the end of the 2023-24 season, the team announced Thursday.
The Istanbul outfit is currently in the process of attempting to salvage a spot in the Playoffs of Turkey’s BSL. The 12-16 record is right on the top-eight bubble with two games remaining in the double-legged round-robin regular-season schedule.
Guided by Pistiolis since late in the 2021-22 campaign, the Lions participated in the Basketball Champions League for a third season in a row but fell short of progressing from the Round of 16 to the Quarterfinals, the exact same result as the 2021-22 run. In 2020-21, they exited after the Regular Season.
The new head coach carries plenty of BCL experience as the former boss of AS Monaco. The stint at La Roca Team included two Final Four berths ranking second in 2018 and third in 2017. Additional club continental experience led to capturing the 7DAYS EuroCup title in 2021, highlighting the second spell at Monaco. From 2018 to 2020, in charge of another French league powerhouse LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne, he made his way up to the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
Mitrovic went from launching a coaching career at Buducnost to working in Ukraine for over a decade, before undertaking the challenge of lifting Monaco from the second-tier division of France to success at both domestic and continental levels. He also coached the Montenegro senior national team in the 2019 FIBA World Cup.