# Hellenic National Team



## SEOK

Ioannis Ioannidis decided to cut Mihalis Pelekanos and Sofoklis Shortsianitis from the NT. 
Now there are 17 players: 
pg: Papaloukas, Diamantidis, Harisis, Papamakarios 
sg: Sigalas, Diamantopoulos, Hatzivrettas 
sf: Kommatos, Papanikolaou, Alvertis, Kakiouzis 
pf: Ntikoudis, Fotsis, Tsartsaris 
c: Ledkov, Papadopoulos, Rentzias 

Well... 5 players will be cut in the next days. I just cannot imagine who will be them. Personally, I'd keep in the team Sigalas, because as I've already said, it's a good ambassador between the other players and the sergent-coach, even if Diamantopoulos and Hatzivrettas are actually better than him. I'd cut Papanikolaou, Tsartsaris and Papadopoulos, then it's really difficult. 
Kommatos? Ok, four. And a point-guard. I don't like so much Harisis, while Papamakarios is a great defender on the other pg, and has two enormous balls. He's the classical player who wouldn't be scared even playing an overtime in the OG final after having been on the bench for 40 minutes. 
H...
Ha...
Hat...
Hatz...
Hatzi...
Hatzis. Why are you not in the team? :sigh:


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## ira

you got a point about sigalas but i think he shouldn`t be in the team (although he most definately will be)

his performance since he left olimpiakos is average (at best) he doesn`t deserve a place in the team !!!! 

i also would cut retzias .... he has got to many chances and never produced anything .. and i thing papadopoulos has better moves inside the paint 

in pg 4 players a too many ... diamantidis will be in starting five, papaloukas is a tall and fast pg , i thing he will also be in the team. harisis or papaloukas ??? tough choise... i`d go with harisis cause he seems more playmaker than papaloukas (who had an excellent season BTW)

papanikolaou should be cut also (the same reasons as sigalas)
highly overrated player! 

we have 4 ... who will be 5th ? 
maybe kommatos but he is a good scorer and the greek NT needs someone who can pull the score 
tsartsaris didn`t have a good season but he is very talented 
.... i don`t know who is the 5th!!!

who would you leave out (from the 17 players) for chatzis?


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## gvergoulas

Ok, so I have an idea of who is likely to be cut, although I thought that Retzias played well in the qualifying games (5) for Greece. According to the Eurobasket2003 site he averaged 18 points, 10 rebs and 1 block, eventhough it wasn't the best competition.

Who would you have start though? I think they should try new players for once:
PG - Diamantidis 
SG - Diamantopoulos
SF - Kakousis
PF - Dikoudis/Fotsis (can't decide)
C - Big Jake


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## ltsook

Papanikolaou had a great year with Makedonikos and improved his shooting. Plus he had a leading role in his team and that should count for something.


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## gvergoulas

I don't think they need so many guards and shooting gaurds, Papaloukas and Papamakarios can easily play both positions. I would get rid of Sigalas and Harisis.

I really don't like Alvertis and would get rid of him (but like Sigalas, he will get picked simply becasue he comands respect)since Fotsis is athletic enough to play small forward too.


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## ira

great year with 17ppg (in a team scoring 85ppg) and 5rpg ? 

then what can we say about kommatos who had 22ppg (while paok averaged 81 ppg) 39% 3pt , 60% 2pt and 9 rpg ? 


Kommatos, Papanikolaou, Alvertis, Kakiouzis 
all of them had a key role in its team but papanikolaou was worst of them all 
i `m not saying that he is a bad player the during the season the other 3 where much better

BTW i hate players who don`t try to improve their wicknesses 
papanikolaou still shoots with an awfull 62% from the line


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## ira

> Originally posted by <b>gvergoulas</b>!
> 
> 
> I really don't like Alvertis and would get rid of him (but like Sigalas, he will get picked simply becasue he comands respect)since Fotsis is athletic enough to play small forward too.


alvertis is a kind of player who will take the last shoot to win the game ... and he will make the shoot 
all the other player maybe more talented than alvertis but yhey don`t have the experience for this kind of situations 
and you need a player like this in any team ....


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## Genjuro

> Originally posted by <b>gvergoulas</b>!
> 
> Who would you have start though? I think they should try new players for once:
> PG - Diamantidis
> SG - Diamantopoulos
> SF - Kakousis
> PF - Dikoudis/Fotsis (can't decide)
> C - Big Jake


Why don't you just put Fotsis as SF?


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## Gousgounis

Players like Sigalas, Papanikolaou and Rentzias have been given the chance a lot of times in the NT and they have failed all the times...It's time to move on and cut theme now and give other, better players the chance to play...

This is how the team should look like

PG Diamantidis, Spanoulis
SG Diamantopoulos, Hatzivrettas
SF Fotsis, Kakiouzis, Kommatos
PF Dikoudis, Rentzias, Pavlidis
C Tsakalidis, Papadopoulos

Fotsis is not a PF and certainly not a C (he was playing C and PF at PAO).....He is a SF and will never become a PF/C no matter what Obradovic thinks....Fotsis was playing SG/SF 3 years ago and just because he grew 6 cm (from 2.04 to 2.10) Zoc tried to make him a PF/C without succes......As a result he also lost some of his quickness and explosiveness he used to have...
Papamakarios played SG all the season and as a SG he can't make it in the NT...He should not be in the NT IMO...


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## qwertyu

Does anyone know if the game against Australia today is on tv?


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## qwertyu

I'm listening to the game on the radio right now and Ioannidis has started 

Papaloukas
Hatzivretas
Kakiouzis
Fotsis
Tsakalidis

Australia is leading the score 8-4. Hatzivretas and Tsakalidis have scored 2 points


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## qwertyu

I'm surprised Ioannidis hasn't started either Sigalas or Alvertis. It looks like he wants to make some changes to the team


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## Gousgounis

> Does anyone know if the game against Australia today is on tv?


lol 

And Yeah I'm listening to the game over the radio as well


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## qwertyu

Well Hellas won the game by 13 I think, 89-76 if I remember correctly.
Ioannidis used the following 12 players

Papaloukas/Papamakarios
Hatzivretas/Sigalas/Diamantopoulos
Kakiouzis/Alvertis/Papanikolaou
Fotsis/Dikoudis
Tsakalidis/Rentzias

I wil be very surprised if Diamantidis is not on the team, but I reall ydon't know what Ioannidis has in mind.
Ioanidis said that he wanted to play a friendly against Australia because he likes the way the australian NT plays and he want our team to play the same way.

The radio said that Tsakalidis is the real difference between this team and the team that failed 2 years ago at the last Eurobasket.
He really helps a lot with his blocks and rebounds and the other 4 players can press more now on defense, because they know they have a giant waiting in the middle to block shots.
I think we're really going to have a good team this year. I have faith in Ioannidis and I'm really looking forward to see how far we can go.


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## qwertyu

by the way, does anyone know if Diamantopoulos has found a team yet? It's a shame that no team in Greece appears to be interested in him.


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## ira

> Originally posted by <b>qwertyu</b>!
> by the way, does anyone know if Diamantopoulos has found a team yet? It's a shame that no team in Greece appears to be interested in him.


he was supposed to go to virtus but .... 
siena is also interested in him 

many greek teams would like to have him. but his contract is far to heavy for all of them! even olimpiakos couldn`t play 50000 more to get him.... all other teams are in low (or very low) budgets


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## gvergoulas

> he was supposed to go to virtus but ....


Going to Siena would make sense since they lost Ford, Diamandopoulos would be a perfect replacement.

The way things look, I'm pretty sure that Komatos and Harisis will get droped from the team. 

I too am surprised to see Diamantdis not playing. He can do everything, even rebound and block shoots which is amizing for a gaurd, but needs to making jump shoots...may be thats whats keeping him from getting picked?


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## ira

it seems strange tome too ... ioannidis has said many good things about diamantidis even when he played 10-15 mins per game ..... rumour has it that ioannidis wanted him to go to anohter team (panathinaikos - aris) and that this didn`t happen is "annoyed" 

it`s true that diamantidis isn`t a good (and consistent) shooter 

but the same goes for harisis and papaloukas .. they are better but not something special 

the other abilities of diamantidis (exceptional passer and defender) can replace his scoring "disability"


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## ltsook

Papanikolaou is the same age as Kommatos but he's been playing A1 ball since he was a junior. It's a matter of experience. Kommatos is just beginning to make his presence noticed.

Papanikolaou had 17 ppg in a team with four good scoring players like Liadelis, Hadlogden and Hart. He was the team's SF so he was the 3rd rebounder. He didn't improve in FTs but he improved in 2p FG percentage (52%).

Kommatos played in a team where he was the goto man and played the most minutes. He scored well but his percentages weren't much better that Papanikolaou's (65% FTs, 58% 2p FGs).

Anyway they both could be out but i think Ioannidis will select Papanikolaou because of his experience.


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## Gousgounis

Well Papanikolaou hasn't helped the NT on previous occasions so I don't see why things have changed (it's not like he has improved his game) and all of a sudden he can be helpful....Besides don't forget that Kakiouzis, Fotsis and Alvertis are better than him and it would be very stupid to have four SF's just so that an experienced player like Papanikolaou will be on the team...It's beyond my mind what Ioannidis sees in Papamakarios....
Hopefully Ioannidis will be smart enough to drop him...(it would be ridiculous to have a 1.85 SG in the team).....
Also our team doesn't have a consistent 20 ppg scorer..Diamantopoulos might have a bad attitude but he will score 20 ppg if given minutes...unfortunately though Sigalas will be playing...I am not optimistic about our team in Eurobasket.....It seems like our coaches are trying to build the NT just in order to please the experienced players and not actually to try to make the best possible team...


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## gvergoulas

> I am not optimistic about our team in Eurobasket


I have to agree with this, until I see them do well I won't believe any of the hype during friendly games. Apparently the press believes that Jake will be the difference for the team! I have trouble believing that too.

If you look at this article (ENET) eventhough Ioanidis started with a promising 5, he still played Sigalas and Alvertis more...and Diamandopoulos at the end of the bench.


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## Gousgounis

> Originally posted by <b>gvergoulas</b>!
> 
> 
> I have to agree with this, until I see them do well I won't believe any of the hype during friendly games. Apparently the press believes that Jake will be the difference for the team! I have trouble believing that too.
> 
> If you look at this article (ENET) eventhough Ioanidis started with a promising 5, he still played Sigalas and Alvertis more...and Diamandopoulos at the end of the bench.


lol at Nikos Papadogiannis's article...."Me Fovitro ton Iakovo"...I doubt countries like Yugoslavia, Turkey, Spain and others are fearing Iakovos Tsakalidis...............Our NT might be good however I frankly believe that with some changes it could be better and would have the potential to make it to the semifinals...Our current team will be happy to finish top 6...But I guess we will have to wait a little bit more and see how they play...


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## qwertyu

yes I think we should wait a little more and give the team a chance before we express an opinion.

Alvertis was the team's leading scorer and Sigalas played the best personal defense of anyone on the team yesterday so I guess they will still get a lot of playing time even if they don't start.

I think Diamantidis will be on the team though as Papaloukas' back-up or even as a starter. My opinion is that Ioannidis will pick the players that played yesterday with Diamantidis replacing either Diamantopoulos or Papanikolaou.

It's also good to see that Turkey lost to Lithuania by 20 even if they were playing without Turkcan and some other players.
I think we can win the group, I'm not afraid of Croatia or Ucraine, Turkey will be the hardest opponent, but I think we can beat them.


We're playing another friendly tonight Australia. Does anyone know what time it is and if it will be on the radio?


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## ira

> Originally posted by <b>Gousgounis</b>!
> Also our team doesn't have a consistent 20 ppg scorer..Diamantopoulos might have a bad attitude but he will score 20 ppg if given minutes...


the strange think is that there are players who showed good scoring abilities (kakiouzis, chatzivrettas, diamantopoulos) but they rarely verufy their potential 

especialy chatzivrettas is an xfile story !!! 
in a team like iraklis and oponents who set their defence over him he had +20 points but with NT where he has help from better players he acts just like a PG passing the ball and making very few shots ... he made 6 attempts in 19 mins !!!! an SG should bemore selfish than that ;-)


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## ira

> Originally posted by <b>qwertyu</b>!
> We're playing another friendly tonight Australia. Does anyone know what time it is and if it will be on the radio?


no tv ??? :-( 

but are u sure about this ? i think the team is in thessaloniki ... on friday starts a tournament with serbia and 2 other teams i don`t remember


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## qwertyu

hey ira, do you know what time the game against Australia is today and if it will be on the radio?

thanks ek ton proteron file


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## qwertyu

> Originally posted by <b>ira</b>!
> 
> 
> no tv ??? :-(
> 
> but are u sure about this ? i think the team is in thessaloniki ... on friday starts a tournament with serbia and 2 other teams i don`t remember


oops sorry I didn't see your message. They'll play another game against Australia today before they leave for Thesaloniki for the tournament. Australia is one of the other 2 teams at the tournament I don't remember which one is the third.

Here is the link where I read about tonight's game 

http://sportnews.flash.gr/articles/2003/8/6/36770/

Ç Áõóôñáëßá (ôçí ïðïßá ç ÅèíéêÞ ÏìÜäá áíôéìåôùðßæåé êáé óÞìåñá, óå êåêëåéóìÝíùí ôùí èõñþí öéëéêü áãþíá)


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## ira

i just heard on the radio that the team is in thessaloniki ... 
nothing about a game today ... 

and possibly that`s the case cause 5 games in 5 days would be too much


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## ira

today at 19.00 greek time ioannidis will talk to the press (91.4 will cover it live in thessaloniki)

friday 19.00 serbia-australia and 21.15 greece bulgaria
saturday 19.00 bulgaria - serbia 21.15 greece - australia
sunday 19.00 bulgaria -australia 21.15 greece-serbia


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## SEOK

> Originally posted by <b>ira</b>!
> who would you leave out (from the 17 players) for chatzis?


Actually Hatzivrettas.


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## ira

why ?


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## SEOK

> Originally posted by <b>ira</b>!
> why ?


Nothing against the player. I like him... but I don't like the idea to have two scorers in the same spot. I can imagine the problems of having both Diamantopoulos and Hatzivrettas, who ask minutes and shoots. At the end, it could be a damage. Of course, they would like, and probably deserve, to play 30 minutes per game. 
Something similar happened in the Italian NT with Myers and Esposito, with catastrophic effects. 
Hatzis would know his role, and wouldn't ask to be the first offensive option of the team. And sincerely, I'd prefer Hatzis on court in the last minutes of a game, instead of Diamantopoulos or Hatzivrettas. I guess that Diama and Vretta couldn't even play together, two balls needed and a hole in defence. While Hatzis and Diamantopolous (or Hatzivrettas) could play together. 
This is simply something "tactic". 
Why Hatzivrettas and not Diamantopoulos? The first one is much more complete than the first, but at the end I think Diama would be a little bit more dangerous.


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## ira

a few post before i said the complitely opposite !!! 

chatzivrettas is far too team player ! 
although he is good scorer he doesn`t demand shots 
as for the last mins of a game i` ve seen him many times taking th last shot and never miss (olimpiakos has some painfull memories from him )


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## qwertyu

Anyway I saw the team for the first time tonight against Bulgaria and we played quite well, we won 99-67 I think.

Ioannidis started 
Diamantidis
Hatzivretas
Fotsis
Rentzias
Tsakalidis

A frontline of Fotsis, Rentzias and Tsakalidis is very difficult to stop for any team and with players like Dikoudis and Tsartsaris coming off the bench the team is very strong up front.
Tsakalidis is VERY improved and Fotsis has regained the confidence he almost lost last year because of the way Obradovic treated him and was the all-around player we know. 

It looks like the Diamantidis/Papaloukas and Hatzivretas/Sigalas will be the guards and there will be no time left for a 5th guard like Diamantopoulos.

Alvertis and Dikoudis will also be back-ups at the 3 and 4 (Alvertis didn't play much today and Dikoudis didn't play at all) and it will be a shame if Tsartsaris is not on the team. He's such a good player, I don't think Rentzias or even Dikoudis are better than him.
Kakiouzis will also be on the team which leaves only one vacant spot.
Papadopoulos had a great game today but it will tough for him to make the team with all those other players in front of him. I'll never understand why Obradovic never used him at Panathinaikos.
Ioannidis might go with a third PG like Harisis or Papamakarios in case one of Diamantidis or Papaloukas have problems with fouls in one of the games or with another scorer like Diamantopoulos or Papanikolaou (personal opinion: not very likely). Kommatos will be cut, he hardly even played today.


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## qwertyu

Anyway my guess on who will be on the team (which changes every day by the way hehe) is:

Diamantidis/Papaloukas/Harisis
Hatzivretas/Sigalas
Fotsis/Alvertis/Kakiouzis
Rentzias/Tsartsaris
Tsakalidis/Dikoudis


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## Zelena Hracka

Greece-Bulgaria 99-64. My National team showed once again how crap it is. Not only cuz the basket they play (which obviously sucks, you have to be blind not to see this) but also cuz of their jerseys. Did you see them? These jerseys belong to the 80's. Even the Iranian team (in the recent junior W.C.) had better jerseys. And what's more, I just realised that Priest Lauderdale and Smith became members of the Bulgarian NT (they didn't play in the aforementioned game though). I mean two americans in the Bulgarian team? (and two more in the FYROM team, Jones and Stack). Crap, crap, crap. I hate when this happens.

By the way, is anybody going to the Greece-Australia game tomorrow. I'm in Greece right now so, _I'll be there _ (Hey SEOK does this phrase reminds you of something?). If anyone fancies some live basketball chat as we watch the game, just let me know.


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## SEOK

> Originally posted by <b>Zelena Hracka</b>!
> Greece-Bulgaria 99-64. My National team showed once again how crap it is.


I remember _someone_ who was telling that Bulgaria was the team of the future and would have became a first-level NT in some years... 



> By the way, is anybody going to the Greece-Australia game tomorrow. I'm in Greece right now so, _I'll be there _ (Hey SEOK does this phrase reminds you of something?).


_in Indianapolis_? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:


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## ira

> Originally posted by <b>qwertyu</b>!
> Anyway my guess on who will be on the team (which changes every day by the way hehe) is:
> 
> Diamantidis/Papaloukas/Harisis
> Hatzivretas/Sigalas
> Fotsis/Alvertis/Kakiouzis
> Rentzias/Tsartsaris
> Tsakalidis/Dikoudis


i don`t know about harisis ... i think he will be off the team ... he has the same style of play like papaloukas .. i don`t see what he can offer to the team 

papadopoulos is a strong candidate! he played pretty good and he shows great enthusiasm


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## qwertyu

Another great game against Australia today.
What I like about this team is that despite the fact that the team is very tall we are a very quick team.
Jake is really unstoppable and he's going to surprise a lot of people and Fotsis who was once a liability on defense has now become one of the best defenders. It looks like Ioannidis has decided on the rotation 

Papaloukas and Diamantidis will share the minutes at the point and will play together at the end of the game when the team needs 2 ball handlers.
Hatzivretas and Sigalas will share the minutes at the 2.
Alvertis and Kakiouzis will share the minutes at the 3, unless Fotsis plays at the 3.
Fotsis and Dikoudis will share the minutes at the 4 wit Fotsis getting some minutes at the 3 as well.
Tsakalidis will get the majority of the minutes at the 5, with softie Rentzias being his back-up.

Papanikolaou started the game and looked good but didn't play at all in the next 3 quarters and Diamantopoulos played only for 2 minutes, tried but he won't make the team. He will be one of the 2 first players cut, the other one is Kommatos (I don't know if it's a coincidence but Diamantopoulos and Kommatos were the league's 2 leading scorers last year, I guess Ioannidis doesn't like scorers very much).


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## Zelena Hracka

SCG-Bulgaria 114-81, Greece-Aussies 70-59. _ I was there _. 
It was a great feeling for a guy that lives in Wales to see so many great players, in live, in a single evening. Players like Stojakovic, Vujanic, Jaric, Vukcevic, Drobnjak, Andersen, McKinnon, Heal, Dikoudis, Fotsis, Alvertis, Tsakalidis, and of course Angelov (remember, he’s the Bulgarian Kukoc according to the Bulgarian journalists, haha). 

One question: Why has Ioannidis not used Papamakarios at all? He wasn’t even at the 10 players that could be used. Why is that? He’s the only point guard that combines everything: Scoring, good organization and good defense. Why does Ioannidis use only Diamandidis and Papaloukas? Especially Diamandidis didn’t try a single shot. The guy is fine but I think Papamakarios can offer more.

And a few words for the Bulgarian team. I was sitting right behind their bench. I could hear what the coach was saying to them very clearly. They didn’t have a single offensive (neither defensive) system. During the time-outs the coach wasn’t saying anything practical, but kept moaning for meaningless reasons. Occasionally he would say to one of his players “You take the tall guy” or “go to the number 10” (By the way, the number 10 has a name, which is Jaric). At least they knew Pedja. During the first half the coach started moaning to Bojko Mladenov, cuz he obviously wasn’t in his best day. Without Bojko saying anything back, he continued to swear at him, just in order to look as basketball coaches do. “Are you sick or something? Get lost!!”. So he did. Without any reason. How embarrassing! I should have enjoyed it, cuz I don’t particularly like Mladenov, but this was unacceptable for a supposingly national team made of pro players. Not to mention the jerseys…again.


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## ltsook

The game against Australia was bad. Against a team with only one center (P. Rogers) Tsakalidis couldn't post and it seems to me he's the same player that left Greece. He has no moves but he has improved his FT shooting. Papadopoulos is a better player and i hope his Obradovic-driven downfall will stop this year in Iraklis. 

Sigalas obviously can't help a lot and if you count that Hadjivrettas doesn't shoot even when he is open it means we have shooting guards that don't shoot (Alvertis played at small forward yesterday and he is the only one that took shots). That's why Papamakarios is needed at the point. Still, Papaloukas was accurate last night and that's a good sign. 

Our defense was good and i think we made less fouls and turn overs when the starting five were playing. Diamantopoulos was out of place in the court and won't be in the team. I think Chatzis deserved a spot.


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## Gousgounis

> Originally posted by <b>qwertyu</b>!
> Another great game against Australia today.




Is this a joke????? Come on...They had a player like Rillie in their starting five (the worst foreigner to play with AEK ever together with Brandon Williams)...We should be beating them with 20 point difference at least...Oour team played bad......
Tsakalidis couldn't take advantage by the fact that he was guarded by a soft player like Andersen..I too think that he is the player that left Greece....Papadopoulos is probably better but his 2 years at PAO will cost him a place in the team.....Rentzias still seems to not like to fight under the basket and his D still sucks.....
I agree with ltsook about our shooting guards....


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## qwertyu

Diamantidis is a smart player with an all-around game but is a weak shooter. It is true that we haven't gotten enough point from the 1 and 2 but I'd rather have a team that scores from inside than a team of shooters.
Why are you so harsh on Tsakalidis? Let's see what he will do today against S&M (the new name is too long) before you say he has new moves.
As for Papamakarios he is a good player but he doesn't have the all-around game Diamantidis or Papaloukas have. I still think the coach will pick a third PG because PGs are like goalkeepers in football you always need 3. I tink Harisis will be picked before Papamakarios.

Anyway the newspapers today in Greece say that Diamantopoulos is going to sign with Olympiakos. He has conversations with Varese, Panathinaikos and Panionios but his agent's answer to those teams appears to be that he has agreed with Olympiakos, something Diamantopoulos won't confirm though.
I still think it doesn't make sense for Olympiakos to sign him.


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## Gousgounis

> Originally posted by <b>ira</b>!
> 
> 
> i don`t know about harisis ... i think he will be off the team ... he has the same style of play like papaloukas .. i don`t see what he can offer to the team
> 
> papadopoulos is a strong candidate! he played pretty good and he shows great enthusiasm


Well Ioannidis cut him for second game in a row which surely means Papadopoulos won't make the team...To bad as he would help the team more than Efthimis "I wanna be a SG" Rentzias...


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## gvergoulas

Did anyone watch the Greece v Serbia game on tv? Apparently we won easily which surprises me...did we really play well or was Serbia poor due to missing players?


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## ltsook

We played great defense and Papaloukas ran the team very well... Of course we were more serious about this game than we should... Vujosevic changed a lot of players but Charissis and Papamakarios played only 2 minutes... The fans wanted a win and Ioannidis gave it to them without making experiments with the roster.


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## SEOK

These are the presences in the tournament "Alexandria". 

*vs Bulgaria*: Harisis, Diamantidis; Hatzivrettas, Sigalas; Kakiouzis, Alvertis, Kommatos; Fotsis, Tsartsaris; Ledkov, Rentzias, Papadopoulos. 

*vs Australia*: Papaloukas, Diamantidis; Hatzivrettas, Sigalas, Diamantopoulos; Papanikolaou, Kakiouzis, Alvertis; Fotsis, Ntikoudis; Ledkov, Rentzias. 

*vs MonteSerbia*: Papaloukas, Harisis, Papamakarios, Diamantidis; Hatzivrettas, Sigalas; Papanikolaou, Kakiouzis; Fotsis, Ntikoudis; Ledkov, Rentzias. 

pg: Diamantidis (3), Papaloukas, Harisis (2), Papamakarios (1) 
sg: Hatzivrettas, Sigalas (3), Diamantopoulos (1)
sf: Kakiouzis (3), Alvertis, Papanikolaou (2), Kommatos (1)
pfi: Fotsis (3), Ntikoudis (2), Tsartsaris (1)
c: Ledkov, Rentzias (3), Papadopoulos (1)

*Nestoras Kommatos* has already been cut, I guess that considering the tournamente, the other players who won't play in Sweden are *Manolis Papamakarios, Giorgos Diamantopoulos, Lazaros Papadoulos*, and one coming from the group composed by *Hristos Harisis, Kostas Tsartsaris, Dimitris Papanikolaou*.


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## ira

this time the team has great depth in the bench.... many players with diffrent style of play which provides to ioannidis many alternatives ... i think it is the best greek NT roster i`ve seen 


i`d like to see papadopoulos instead of retzias but i don`t think it will happen :-( 

i noticed a "problem" when playing tsakalidis and dikoudis ... they both play close to the basket and this causes too much traffic inside the paint and no one can "move" easily 

dikoudis - retzias and fotsis-tsakalidis worked better 


there is indeed a scoring hole in SG.... sigalas can`t score , chatzivrettas wasn`t in good condition during the tournament and diamantopoulos (who is a true SG-killer) seems nervous when in NT. if we add diamantidis inconsistent long range shoting there is only papaloukas who can add a few points from the perimeter 

BTW the team playes very good D but i guess everyone expected that with ioannidis coaching!!


----------



## Gousgounis

We beat Italy today 80-59

According to the reports Ioannidis once again played tsakalidis-fotsis and Rentzias-Dikoudis as our big guys..Personally I think both Dikoudis and Fotsis are to good to be on the bench and the problem could be solved by moving Fotsis to the SF spot but that will not happen....
Papadopoulos was cut once again so I guess he is 100% out of the team.....
I guess we have good depth and a decent team...Good big guys
and good PG's (even though Diamantidis doesn't have experience and that could be a problem...... he hasn't played as good as he can in the friendlies)...Our weaknesses are the SG spot (if Sigalas will be playing 25 min a game..God I can't stand him...HE is not good enough for the worst teams in Spain and Italy and still starts in the NT...hopefully Hatzivrettas will start to play good) and maybe the SF spot....


----------



## qwertyu

I've watched Giorgos many times live and he does all the little things team needs to win a game, things you can't understand when you watch the games on tv. He might not score many points but he's the most hard-working player on every team he's on, he always encourages his teammates and he's a great person too.
Hate all you want but Giorgos is very important to the team. Against Serbia he was sensational.

So what happened to all those idiots who hated on Jake?
You still don't think he has any moves?
I really do think Jake will steal the show in Sweden and he might even be the MVP of the tournament no I'm not exagerrating).

Rentzias isn't really that good. When he plays instead of Jake the team looks much worse.

Fotsis is a really good player, there are NO players left in Europe that are as good as him and he definiely deserves a job in the NBA.


I hate to diagree with people like this but some of the messages I read here anoyed me too much and I had to reply.


----------



## italianBBlover

> Originally posted by <b>Gousgounis</b>!
> We beat Italy today 80-59


What a bad game for Italy ... but we were without our "official" PGs Bulleri and Basile ( both light injuries) and the team comes from 10-12 days of heavy work.

Gretz


----------



## GreekStyler

stop making excuses - italian nt is not that good anyway


----------



## italianBBlover

> Originally posted by <b>GreekStyler</b>!
> stop making excuses - italian nt is not that good anyway


Well ... they aren't excuses 
Few days ago we won against Turkey  

And we aren't good ? 

No Abbio (long injury)
No Andrea Meneghin (long injury)
No Pittis ( injury/choice )
No Myers (choice)
No F.ucka (choice )
No Frosini (choice )

So it's not so simply be so strong like in 1999  :no: 

But I think that this italian NT can good make too ... maybe no win, but in the first 4 or 5 yes.

Gretz


----------



## GreekStyler

If u guys were the coach of the greek nt wat would be ur starting 5????

I say;

pg - diamantidis
sg - diamantopoulos
sf - fotsis
pf - dikoudis
c - ledkov

This starting 5 would be awesome!. What do u guys think??


----------



## ira

especially if diamantopoulos plays as he can ... he is trully a gifted scorer but he never proved in with NT so i `ll go with hatzivrettas (not a very objective opinion but i realy like this player)

i`d put alvertis instead of fotsis and fotsis in PF instead of dikoudis cause the duo dikoudis-tsakalidis isn`t working 

so 

diamantidis 
hatzivrettas
alvertis
fotsis
tsakalidis 

the good thing with this team is the bench ... could anyone imagine that a player like dikoudis or papaloukas wouldn`t start?


----------



## OwnTheBlocks

cutting an nba draft pick from your NT? wow

rentzias and papadopolous (sp) are solid big men but i can't see them not keeping sofo around for physicality and fundamental development for the long term NT future purposes


----------



## ira

sofoklis had health problems and the doctors proposed a lot of days rest and he couldn`t keep up with the rest of the team 

moreover schortsianitis should take the place of one of the following : dikoudis , tsakalidis and retzias .... 

tsakalidis IS a nba player (not a great one but something more than sofoklis who is just a draft and only 18 years old) 
dikoudis is best greek player the last 2-3 years ... simply there can`t be a greek NT without him
retzias has a place i the team becaus of his style of play .. he is a C that can score from mid and long range and offer something different inside the paint than the other tall guys 

the fact that schortsianitis is off the team proves the depth of the team ..... hopefully we`ll do well this time


----------



## qwertyu

> Originally posted by <b>OwnTheBlocks</b>!
> cutting an nba draft pick from your NT? wow
> 
> rentzias and papadopolous (sp) are solid big men but i can't see them not keeping sofo around for physicality and fundamental development for the long term NT future purposes


Schortsianitis was tired because he was playing basketball all summer. He's too young and inexperienced to make the team so Ioannidis, the coach let him rest.


As for Papadopoulos he did play yesterday even if some sites don't mention it.
The italian coach wanted each team to use 14 players so Ioannidis used everyone except for Papamakarios and Harisis.


----------



## qwertyu

Anyone knows where I can find stats for last night's game? Because all I could find was how many points each player scored.
I wanna see the distribution of playing time, the rebounds etc.


----------



## SEOK

I've simply one doubt. I wouldn't like that Greek NT reached the best shape too soon. +20 against MonteSerbia, +21 against Italy (that actually is at the same level of Sweden or the Netherlands, with all the respect to Sweden or the Holland...), 2/2 against Australia... 

I wouldn't like to see the players without legs at the EC, or with the bad attitude to believe to be practically unbeatable. Nothing has been won, no important game has been played. This is simply a start. I hope it's not a false-start... I've to admit that I wasn't seeing a so organized team-defense in a National team for many years. Looking this NT I remember something of the Panathinaikos of Obradovic, or the finals between PAO and OSFP (scores like 44-42, or similar...). 

The group will be practically the same of Turkey '01, with Diamantidis instead of Kalaitzis, and Ledkov replacing Papadopoulos. What I can remember about the "tragedy" (Hellas-Germany) was that in this game a 2nd point-guard was missing (Papaloukas played 40 minutes, Kalaitzis d.n.p. <-- and it has been a mistake, Papaloukas was dead in last minutes, and the 1/6 from the ft line in last 30" proves that too) and the Germans destroyed Greece with 2nd and 3rd opportunities (Okulaja grabbed 250 rebs...). Petropoulos didn't use Fotsis (1st rebounder, if I'm not wrong, even playing 10 minutes...) and Papadopoulos: with Ledkov, the troubles in the paint won't be so much. Or better, Jake, Rentzias, Fotsis, Ntikoudis are probebly the best troop of tall players in this EC. 
Not only that: Ntikoudis was at his 2nd season with AEK, "a good player" but has someone already told, he wasn't still the best Greek like he's now. Fotsis will play, Hatzivrettas got an important international experience in Moscow, the same about Papaloukas. Practically the same teams with improved players and two important additions. Optimism isn't forbidden, even if it's better to stay with feet on earth.


----------



## ira

> Originally posted by <b>qwertyu</b>!
> Anyone knows where I can find stats for last night's game? Because all I could find was how many points each player scored.
> I wanna see the distribution of playing time, the rebounds etc.


an interesting stat is that hatzivrettas scored 11 in 13mins (2/3 3p) and diamantopoulos 10 in 8mins (4/5 2p) 

diamantidis had 3 steals and 5 assists in 25 mins (no one played more) 

greece outrebounded italy 42 to 25 !!


----------



## SEOK

*Who will be the 12th?*

This is the question. 
These are the cumulate presences in the last 5 games of preparation (Tournament Alexandreia, Italy, Spain): 

*@ Italia 80-59:* Papaloukas, Diamantidis; Hatzivrettas, Sigalas, Diamantopoulos; Papanikolaou, Alvertis, Kakiouzis; Fotsis, Ntikoudis (Tsartsaris dnp); Ledkov, Rentzias, Papadopoulos. 

*@Spagna 76-87:* Papaloukas, Diamantidis; Hatzivrettas, Sigalas; Papanikolaou, Alvertis, Kakiouzis; Fotsis, Ntikoudis; Ledkov, Rentzias

*Totals*
play: Diamantidis (5), Papaloukas (4), Harisis (2), Papamakarios (1) 
guardie: Hatzivrettas, Sigalas (5), Diamantopoulos (2)
ali piccole: Kakiouzis (5), Alvertis, Papanikolaou (4), [strike]Kommatos (1)[/strike]
ali forti: Fotsis (5), Ntikoudis (4), Tsartsaris (1)
centri: Ledkov, Rentzias (5), Papadopoulos (2)

11 players are already in the team: Diamantidis, Papaloukas; Sigalas, Hatzivrettas; Kakiouzis, Alvertis, Papanikolaou; Ntikoudis, Rentzias; Ledkov, Rentzias. 

I don't like the "tears" I've read about the game in Spain. Hey, in Sweden it could be worst, this has always happened. So, work work and work. Words are useless, but I've to admit that I couldn't stop to laugh after having read what Sigalas told... 
From this game, Ioannidis should have learnt something: if Ledkov and Rentzias will have problems with fouls, perhaps it would be good to have a 3rd center in the roster. Ok, Ntikoudis can play "5" too, but he's not so dangerous like he's in power forward. I guess that at this point Ioannidis should put in the team Papadopoulos...


----------



## qwertyu

*Re: Who will be the 12th?*



> Words are useless, but I've to admit that I couldn't stop to laugh after having read what Sigalas told...


hahaha me too :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:


----------



## Zelena Hracka

*Malakes...*



> I couldn't stop to laugh after having read what Sigalas told...



_"Hasame apo dyo malakes diaitites"_ 
*"We lost due to two "malaka" referees"  *

That's my boy!


----------



## SEOK

It seems, according to www.sportnews.gr, that 10 players have their place in the team: Papaloukas, Diamantidis, Hatzivrettas, Sigalas, Alvertis, Papanikolaou, Ntikoudis, Fotsis, Ledkov and Rentzias. 

Diamantopoulos won't be in the team, "because he can't help in defence, and he stops the ball circulation in offense", so Ioannidis will put in the roster "a player who can play both pg and sg". It means Harisis or Papamakarios, with a little advantage for the player of Peristeri. 
Papadopoulos too won't play in Sweden, and the missing spot is in forward: the candidates for this place are Kakiouzis and Tsartsaris. The player of Siena is more talented, he can help a lot in the paint (rebounds...), while Tsartsaris could be choosen just for defensive attitude (but Kakiouzis isn't bad too, I think). At the end I guess that Kakiouzis will be the 12th player, everyone could see how he helped Siena this year. He's the classical player who improves his team mates. He can do everything, I really can't imagine him out from *any* European NT... 

If Harisis won't join the team, the HNT will be probably for the first time absolutely Gavroless... maybe that will suggest to Ioannidis to choose him instead of Papamakarios. There won't be player of AEK Athens too, three coming from Panathinaikos (Hatzivrettas, Papanikolaou, Alvertis), six playing abroad (Ledkov: USA; Fotsis, Ntikodis: Spain, Kakiouzis: Italy, Rentzias: Turkey, Papaloukas: Russia) and three coming from Peristeri, Makedonikos and Iraklis (Papamakarios, Sigalas, Diamantidis). 

Only Alvertis, Papamakarios and Ntikoudis played in the Greek league F4 2002-03.


----------



## Gousgounis

it's a shame players like Tsartsaris and Kakiouzis haven't secured a place on this team while players like Sigalas, Alvertis and Papanikolaou have...


----------



## SEOK

> Originally posted by <b>Gousgounis</b>!
> Alvertis


Gousgounis :rocket: SEOK


----------



## qwertyu

> Originally posted by <b>SEOK</b>!
> It seems, according to www.sportnews.gr, that 10 players have their place in the team: Papaloukas, Diamantidis, Hatzivrettas, Sigalas, Alvertis, Papanikolaou, Ntikoudis, Fotsis, Ledkov and Rentzias.
> 
> Diamantopoulos won't be in the team, "because he can't help in defence, and he stops the ball circulation in offense", so Ioannidis will put in the roster "a player who can play both pg and sg". It means Harisis or Papamakarios, with a little advantage for the player of Peristeri.
> Papadopoulos too won't play in Sweden, and the missing spot is in forward: the candidates for this place are Kakiouzis and Tsartsaris. The player of Siena is more talented, he can help a lot in the paint (rebounds...), while Tsartsaris could be choosen just for defensive attitude (but Kakiouzis isn't bad too, I think). At the end I guess that Kakiouzis will be the 12th player, everyone could see how he helped Siena this year. He's the classical player who improves his team mates. He can do everything, I really can't imagine him out from *any* European NT...
> 
> If Harisis won't join the team, the HNT will be probably for the first time absolutely Gavroless... maybe that will suggest to Ioannidis to choose him instead of Papamakarios. There won't be player of AEK Athens too, three coming from Panathinaikos (Hatzivrettas, Papanikolaou, Alvertis), six playing abroad (Ledkov: USA; Fotsis, Ntikodis: Spain, Kakiouzis: Italy, Rentzias: Turkey, Papaloukas: Russia) and three coming from Peristeri, Makedonikos and Iraklis (Papamakarios, Sigalas, Diamantidis).
> 
> Only Alvertis, Papamakarios and Ntikoudis played in the Greek league F4 2002-03.


The person who wrote that article says at the end that of the article that he's just guessing who will be on the team and that Ioannidis might have completely different things in mind.

My guess is that Kakiouzis will be the 11th player on the team, as for the 12th spot Harisis, Papamakarios, Diamantopoulos, Tsartsaris and Papadopoulos all have a chance to be on the team. I don't think Ioannidis has decided yet.


----------



## Gousgounis

I watched 5 of Greece's latest friendlies.....These are my conlusions....

1. Kakiouzis is a more complete player than Papanikolaou and Alvertis and deserves the starting job.....Papanikolaou is useless...Apparently the greek newspapers (that are crap) say that he made an amazing job against Stojakovic in our games Serbia...I have to say that I didn't see the games but according to the stats Stojakovic made him his *****.......
Alvertis is too one dimensional to be starting...He should come in against zone defence and in the occasions when we need perimeter shooting....

2. Sigalas is finished and ever since he left Olympiakos he is becoming worse and worse..He didn't deserve to be in the NT but made it because he is a media favourite and is good on cheering teammates.....

3. I am still not sold on Diamantidis and Hatzivrettas..They seem to be intimidated...The did however play good in the last game against Slovenia but in Eurobasket the pressure will be much huge.....( a loss against Turkey will NOT be accepted)...It's very important tha Hatzivrettas starts scoring because our other player at the SG spot (Sigalas) can't score.....If I was Ioannidis I would pick third PG to be on the safe side in case Diamantidis won't be able to handle the pressure....The third PG would be Charissis for the simple fact that Papamakarios has not been tested as a PG as he played SG all season..

4. Our basket will have a HUGE hole when Tsakalidis is out as Rentzias doesn't like to play physical........Someone has to teach this guy to get mean otherwise players like Femmerling will do huge damage to us if Tsakalidis is out.... (this happened in the 2001 Eurobasket)..

5. Let's say we will face Nowitzki's Germany....Which Greek players can guard a player like him????..Fotsis..Yes..Dikoudis...Probably...That's two players....What if those players start having foul problems (which they will)..It would be very good to have a third player that can guard him...I am not a big fan of Tsartsaris (because I don't like soft players) but due to the reasons I mentioned above he should be in the team...The player that would be cut in Tsartsari's favor should be Papanikolaou..

6. I hope Ioannidis will not make any mistakes a la Kostas Petropoulos..God I still can't forgive Petropoulos for putting a guy like Alvertis to guard Kirilenko at Eurobasket 2001...How stupid can somebody be........

Sorry for the long message......


----------



## SEOK

Gousgounis: 

1. Kakiouzis is the best Greek sf, and one of the best European players in this spot. It's not possible there was a doubt his presence in the list. Alvertis can't be out from the NT because it's so rare he misses an hot game, and a decisive shoot. 

2. I would have put Sigalas in the twelwe, but not instead of Diamantopoulos or Tsartsaris or Papamakarios. I've already told 100.000 times why he's important in the NT. Sigalas yes, Papanikolaou no. I'd really like to understand why he's so overrated. 

3. I agree. Hatzivrettas has not personality, while Sigalas, Diamantopoulos and Hatzis have. Some days ago I wrote I was pretty disappointed and I would have left him out. I've always the same idea. I am not a fan of Diamantopoulos, or better I know he's a fantastic and talented player, but he can't work with the Ioannidis philosophy. Well, maybe Diamantopoulos doesn't work in defence, but he would have not been scared in Sweden. I think Hatzivrettas could be... I like too much Diamantidis and I don't want to say anything. But I think Papaloukas will play really a lot at the EB...

4. Ntikoudis will play minutes in "5". Sure. I'm not a fan of Rentzias, but maybe he will desire to take a revenge after the awful experience in the States. Look that it's not bad Rentzias in this team: there are not dangerous shooting guards, so he will finally realize his dream. "Coach, I'm ready. Put me in my natural role": Papaloukas, Rentzias, Alvertis, Ntikoudis, Ledkov. I'd pay 10 tickets to see that in a game...  

5. Ntikoudis, yes. *Kakiouzis*, yes (who says he can't defence, should follow another sport). Fotsis, hmmmmmm. Tsartsaris on Nowitzki is great: how to finish fouled out within 60 seconds... (but Tsartsaris is not _so_ soft...)

6. And Papaloukas playing 40 minutes against Germany? And Fotsis, best rebounder, always on the bench against the Germans? But Ioannidis, I'm sure, will make some mistakes. He loves himself too much not to try to do something for which he could be remembered as a hero. Imagine, for example, Hatzivrettas "in trance". He has 10 points in 5 minutes, but he doesn't work with the team: he's simply living an evening in which he can scores from the toilets of the arena too. Do you think he will stay on the court, or Ioannidis will punish him because he doesn't respect the rules of the team? I go with the second, hoping to be wrong. 

Good night...


----------



## Amareca

Could anyone please post Big Jake's statistics in the games they played so far ?

Thanks


----------



## qwertyu

> Originally posted by <b>BigAmare</b>!
> Could anyone please post Big Jake's statistics in the games they played so far ?
> 
> Thanks


I'm not really sure but during the last game against Sloveia there was a card with the team's leading scorers in the friendlies they played this summer and Jake was the leading scorer.

Tsakalidis 12.8
Fotsis 10.8
Dikoudis 10.6
Rentzias 10.3
Tsartsaris 9



Did anyone else notice that the team's 5 leading scorer are all big men?


----------



## J-Will2

Hey. Just wanted to congratulate Hellas for winning against our team on the tournament... You roughed us up pretty well.  Nice job, noone stands out, great team work. Thumb's up.


----------



## qwertyu

You have a good team too. You beat Israel and Poland easily and if Lakovic finds his way to the basket you're going to be a very dangerous team in Sweden.


----------



## ira

pg: Papaloukas, Diamantidis, Harisis
sg: Sigalas, Hatzivrettas 
sf: Papanikolaou, Alvertis, Kakiouzis 
pf: Ntikoudis, Fotsis 
c: Ledkov, Rentzias 

ioannidis finaly made up his mind 

the last two who were cut of the team are tsartsaris and papamakarios


----------



## SEOK

Papaloukas 
Diamantidis :clap: 
Harisis  
Sigalas  
Hatzivrettas :no: 
Papanikolaou  
Alvertis :cheers: 
Kakiouzis :clap: 
Ntikoudis :king: 
Fotsis 
Ledkov :usa: 
Rentzias


----------



## qwertyu

Ioannidis said that it broke his heart that he had to cut Tsartsaris? Then why is Papanikolaou on the team?

Papanikolaou usually starts the games but he's the first one to be replaced and after he's replaced he doesn't play again. I wonder what he was needed for then.


----------



## Gousgounis

I hope Papanikolaou won't get too much playing time....Tsartsaris would have been more useful to this team .......
I hope our players will give it all and will be able to handle the pressure (which will be huge because of our previous catastrophic results)......
Something else that came to my mind...Some of the players that got cut are really good..Take a look at our "b" level NT:

Spanoulis-Zisis
Diamantopoulos-Pelekanos
Tapoutos-Tsartaris
Schortsianitis-Pavlidis
Papadopoulos-Glyniadakis

I truely believe that this team is on about the same level as our "A" level team (maybe a little worse but not by much)...


----------



## Zelena Hracka

Harissis and Papanikoloaou are in the team. Papamakarios and Tsartsaris are out. 


WTF?


----------



## SEOK

> Originally posted by <b>Gousgounis</b>!
> Spanoulis-Zisis
> Diamantopoulos-Pelekanos
> Tapoutos-Tsartaris
> Schortsianitis-Pavlidis
> Papadopoulos-Glyniadakis
> 
> I truely believe that this team is on about the same level as our "A" level team (maybe a little worse but not by much)...


pg: Papamakarios, Zisis, Xanthopoulos
sg: Diamantopoulos, Liadellis 
sf: Kommatos, Pelekanos 
pf: Tsartsaris, Sklavos 
c: Papadopoulos, Shortsianitis, Glyniadakis


----------



## Gousgounis

> Originally posted by <b>SEOK</b>!
> 
> 
> pg: Papamakarios, Zisis, Xanthopoulos
> sg: Diamantopoulos, Liadellis
> sf: Kommatos, Pelekanos
> pf: Tsartsaris, Sklavos
> c: Papadopoulos, Shortsianitis, Glyniadakis


Well I think Spanoulis is better than Zisis, Papamakarios and Ksanthopoulos..The other positions are debatable...You are right about Kommatos though ...I forgot him...


----------



## ltsook

Pavlides surely deserved a shot this year

Tapoutos has a lot to learn

Spanoulis might have a chance to shine this season


----------



## qwertyu

Our second team is indeed very good.

Papamakarios/Spanoulis
Diamantopoulos/Pelekanos
Kommatos/Pavlidis
Tsartsaris/Schortsianitis
Papadopoulos/Glyniadakis


----------



## Gousgounis

Some news from Eurobasket....The game Greece-Turkey is sold out...In the rest of the games only 50% of the tickets have been sold....The Swedes doesn't seem to be interested in Eurobasket.....I also don't understand why they put the games in a small town like Boras which has a stadium that takes only 3000....They should have put the games here in Gothenburg instead which has a 12 000 capacity stadium and is a way bigger city...
Anyway Before the game they will have some friendship events in town like streetbball between Croats, Greeks and Turks etc....
Also there will be more Turks than Greeks in the Greece-Turkey game...(there are many more of them in Sweden..they like to live here because they get paid really well without even working ....lazy people)....We will give it all to win the "crowd battle" though......Tha exoun plaka i fatses ton asximomouron kolomousoulmanon...(an kerdisoume vevea)...


----------



## SEOK

Did anyone see note that 3 of the 9 sponsors of the Eurobasket 2003 are Greek enterprises? Egnatia, Eurobank and Exalco. 
I guess Greece will play many games in this happening... you know, money is always money. Good. 

Another thing. I really hope Italy will go home in three games, 0-3. Without mercy. These 12 sucking players were against the inclusion of Virtus Bologna in Serie A. Well, they can keep on playing their average basketball in their average team, suffering what the players of VB suffered this season: cutted or delayed salaries...


----------



## Gousgounis

*Disapointed* 

Greece- Croatie 77-76

We won the game even though we didn't deserve....The Croats missed 6 free throws the last minute....
Nothing seems to have changed since Eurobasket 99 and 01...Our NT is still a joke.......A lot of things must change so that our NT can become top 4 team..(which it right now is not).....VERY VERY dissapointed with what I saw..I will wait until the end of the Turnament til I judge them though...Anything else than a metal is a failure.....And it will be the third failure in a row if we don't take a medal...It seems that two failures in a row was not enough for some people to understand that our NT needs changes....Hopefully if we fail this time as well (don't take a medal.. a fifth or sixth place is a failure) people will realize that changes must be done........I might sound pessimistic but I have every right to be (see Eurobasket 99, 01...the team is also basicly the same)..


----------



## SEOK

> Originally posted by <b>Gousgounis</b>!
> Anything else than a metal is a failure.....And it will be the third failure in a row if we don't take a medal...


1987 gold medal 
1989 silver medal 
1991-93-95-97-99-2001 nothing 

7th failure in a row...


----------



## Matiz

Giricek won the game for you.
Don't be dissapointed becouse of that, Croatian basketball school was always one of the best... Remember Barcelona 92'!?


----------



## qwertyu

Anything but a medal is a failure? I disagree with that. There are many good teams in the Eurobasket it won’t be that easy to win a medal.
And we haven’t had 7 failures in a row either.
4th place in 93
4th place in 95
4th place in 97

The game last night was great. The team was under a lot of pressure to prove what they can do and Croatia was just as good as I expected, if not better.

Papaloukas and Diamantidis had a bad night and they couldn’t stop Mulaomerovic and Popovic. Planicic hardly played at all. But when Harisis came in he changed the whole game. He played incredible defense on Popovic and scored the last basket.

Hatzivretas was our leading scorer and our most reliable player in most of the game. Sigalas the captain who replaced him in the last minutes played incredible defense on Giricek and scored 5 points when the team needed them most.
Papanikolaou tried and played well. Alvertis tried too but he didn’t shoot well and he didn’t help with the rebounds very much.
Rentzias almost lost the game for us with his missing free throws and his matador defense. When Tsakalidis was in noone would dare go near the basket except for Prkacin who played a great game and won many battles from the greek big men.
I was also impressed by both Prkacin and Bagaric. Bagaric made Rentzias look like an amateur and I think Ioannidis played him too much. I hope he understands his mistake in the next game. The team will be tired now against Turkey.

I also saw the game between Serbia and Russia. Russia won easily. Serbians looked like they thought they would win easily but Kirilenko and Likholitov were unstoppable inside.
Khriapa and Monia stopped Stojakovic and Serbia’s guards had a bad game.

Slovenia won Italy (good win for Slovenia) and France won Bosnia easy in the first group. Tonight France will have a hard time against Italy. 

Germany and Lithuania had many difficulties beating Israel and Latvia but they won.

Spain won Sweden very easily and Turkey won Ucraine who I think will be a stronger and more dangerous team than most people think.


----------



## ira

4th place can`t be a failure unless you are dream team!

against croatia we were just good in defence and awfull offensively! 

we looked like a bunch of kids playeing basketball for fun! 
i haven`t seen so unorganized team... it seemed there weren`t any plays and the players were improvising 

2 min to full time croatia was up by 5 , greece had the ball and after 10secs retzias tried a 3p shot. maybe i`m wrong but this is the worst move they could do !!!! i think the players didn`t have a clear mind 

i hope for a greek team today

BTW i think dikoudis could play better against croatia`s big men than retzias


----------



## Gousgounis

> Anything but a medal is a failure? I disagree with that. There are many good teams in the Eurobasket it won’t be that easy to win a medal.
> And we haven’t had 7 failures in a row either.
> 4th place in 93
> 4th place in 95
> 4th place in 97


Having the chance to win a medal three times in a row and failing all the times is a failure......Or are you pleased by the fact that out NT ended up 4th three times in a row......I am not......

As I said before our team will get raped if we play countries like Spain, Russia and Yugo's and maybe France..Our NT still seems to be mediocre...............Even you guys seem to have realised that now and now say that medal is too hard for this team........That's not how it sounded before Eurobasket......Back then Tsakalidis was supposed to be the MVP of the turnament:upset: :upset: (yeah he will be useful but noway jose MVP)..

By the way can somebody shoot this Hatzivlakas guy...."O Rentzias einai o kaliteros stin Evropi meta ton Nowitzki"......Akou eki ti lei autos....... o enas einai apo tous 10 kaliterous paiktes ston kosmo kai o allos paizi Tourkia....


----------



## Genjuro

> Originally posted by <b>qwertyu</b>!
> and Turkey won Ucraine who I think will be a stronger and more dangerous team than most people think.


No, they won't. Ucraine played one exhibition game against Spain and their level is awful. Turkey had problems with them, but I don't expect anything good from Turkey either. As I had written weeks ago, they aren't a TEAM. Maybe they could surprise the Greek team, as the game has a special rivality and the court will be crowded, but that's all.


----------



## Gousgounis

> Originally posted by <b>Matiz</b>!
> Giricek won the game for you.
> Don't be dissapointed becouse of that, Croatian basketball school was always one of the best... Remember Barcelona 92'!?



You said it yourself.....
Giricek won the game for us...I wan't my NT to win games by itself..That's why I am dissapointed...


----------



## qwertyu

Yes I think winning the 4th place is not a failure. We are a small country who didn’t have any basketball tradition 15 years ago. I will be very happy if the team plays competitive basketball, is one of the top 4 teams and then wins a medal in the Olympics in Athens next year.

I also agree with ira, Dikoudis should have backed-up Tsakalidis when he had foul trouble.
Didn’t Ioannidis see that everytime Rentzias was in, the Croatians were always scoring from inside the paint because there was noone to stop them? I was really afraid Rentzias was going to lose the game for us. He is a good shooter and he played better when he played at the 4 but he can’t play at the 5.


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## ira

i hope i won`t get any flames for this post .... 

i read in the papers that ioannidis won the game and that his coaching was a masterpiece .... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i think ioannidis is the best greek coach but yesterday he was sleeping during the game or his players didn`t follow his order 

even the commentator for the greek tv saw that we should play more inside the paint !!!!


----------



## ltsook

First of all i think ioannidis just didn't get what he wanted from Tsakalidis but he insisted on keeping him in the court. A heavy center isn't always the best against a lightweight front court. Prkacin had a party going on all game long.

Good defense pays off the best when it leads to fast breaks and we only played like that in the beginning of the second half when Chadjivrettas made some easy points.

Most of the game we couldn't make plays but whoever had the ball tried to penetrate instead through a crowded defense.

We had a lot of open looks against Croatia's zone defense especially from the corners but we blew them.

We gave back Croatia's gift twice and we're lucky Charissis is a gutsy player and wasn't afraid to go all the way to the basket.

There were moments when no Croatian player was blocked out. You can't rebound like this even if you are 3 metres tall.

Anyway i believe it was all opening game stress, and today we will be serious about the goal we went there to achieve.

Go Greece!

Still, i believe Diamantopoulos had a place for the sake of the game itself if nothing else.


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## Zelena Hracka

> Originally posted by <b>Gousgounis</b>!
> 
> By the way can somebody shoot this Hatzivlakas guy...."O Rentzias einai o kaliteros stin Evropi meta ton Nowitzki"......Akou eki ti lei autos....... o enas einai apo tous 10 kaliterous paiktes ston kosmo kai o allos paizi Tourkia....


:rotf: 



About the game? 


WE SUCKED


----------



## SEOK

> Originally posted by <b>qwertyu</b>!
> Anything but a medal is a failure? I disagree with that. There are many good teams in the Eurobasket it won’t be that easy to win a medal.
> And we haven’t had 7 failures in a row either.
> 4th place in 93
> 4th place in 95
> 4th place in 97


Infact I was following Gousgounis... 
and 4th place in 1994 and 1998 (WC), and 5th place in Atlanta...


----------



## Gousgounis

Papanikolaou got injured and will most likely not play against Turkey..That's great news because now Kakiouzis will finally get minutes (which he deserves as he is better than Papanikolaou and Alvertis)......
I am leaving now for the Greece-Turkey game.....Hope to see a good game...I am not happy with some things in our NT but GO GREECE!!!!!!...


----------



## Gousgounis

Oh my ****ing GOD...OH MY ****ING GOD...What a ****ing game!!!!!!!!!!
I just returned home from the game....IT WAS CRAZY!!!!!!!!
There were a lot of Turks in the stadium they were more than us...But we won the "crowd battle" quite easily...
Before our game Croatia had played and we met a lot of Croat fans....They came and huged us and told us to crush the Turks (it seems like the Croats dislike the Turks as wellD  )..Anyway huge respect to the Croat fans!!!!!!!The are good people!!!
Outside the stadium one Turkish girl showed us the Turkish flag to us and then her middle finger....500 greeks started yelling at her "vale olo to daktilo ston kolo"
 
It was a crazy atmosphere outside the arena and despite the Turks outnumbering us we created the most impressive atmposhere...The Turks were quite and were looking at us................
The game started we started singing like crazy this were my fevourite songs: "Ekanes to gipedo Gamisi Re Charissi RE Charissi...." Ta mounakia Gamiseta Chatzivreta Chatzivretta".....
Anyway about the game we started playing badly.....But somehow we turned around the game and took the lead...We could have increased the margin but the Turks came back...However WE stepped up when we needed to and won the game fairly.....
MVP of the game was IMO Diamantidis he was fantastic organizing the game+ defence and had a huge block on Okur (the referee didn't have his glasses on though and thought it was a foul....That specific referee made a lot of stupid calls and kept the Turks in the game)......I hope this will boost up Diamantidis confidence as we all know he can play better than he did in the friendlies...Hatzivrettas was good and so was Sigalas..I don't like him but I take my hat off (even if I am not wearing one).....He was really good tonight.......
I just wanna say that I also believe that Ioannidis should cut down Papanikolaous minutes and give them to Kakiouzis...It's not fair for Kakiouzis to be the third option at the SF even though he is better than both Papanikolaou and Alvertis....
Tsakalidis struggled a lot against Okur....It seems that afterall he won't be the player that will make the difference in our team....Rentzias was okay.....I still believe though that Papadopoulos is better than both of them and I hope this year he will bounce back from his Obradovic driven downfall....
I also believe that our team still doesn't play up to it's potential.....we have to improve if we wan't a medal....
That's all from me!!!!!!!!
Good night Everybody......
ELLLLLAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDAAAAARRRRRRRRRAAA


----------



## qwertyu

I thought Ioannidis won the game against Croatia but he almost lost the game too with some mistakes he made.

Anyway we won Turkey! What a game! 
This time Ioannidis made again some mistakes keeping Tsakalidis on the court for too long even though he couldn’t chase Okur around who was shooting from outside like a SG. This was the game for Rentzias to show what he could do against another SG like Okur.

Rentzias played great. Alvertis again had a bad shooting night but played great defense on Turkoglu forcing him to make many mistakes. So far Hatzivretas and Sigalas have been perfect.
This time it was Diamantidis’ time to shine at the PG. He played a great game picking up all the rebounds and even blocking Okur (but the stupid referee from Israel gave him a foul). Why does that guy hate us so much? 
Hatzigeorgiou said there were 2000 Turks in the stadium and 700 greeks, but the greek fans were of course louder LOL. He also said that there were 100 swedes in the stadium and they supported the greek team because they spend most of their summer in the greek islands lol and that the people there are asking him why Okur plays in the NBA and Fotsis and Dikoudis don’t Sigalas said that the victory belongs to the Acrites, the people who live on the Greek borders.

We became the first team to qualify for the quarterfinals and what better way to do that than by winning the turks.
Now we don’t care what happens against Ucraine even if we lose we are still in the quarterfinals.


----------



## ltsook

Dont't you think Chadjigeorgiou should pull his face out of Tsakalidis's ***?


----------



## ltsook

Dont't you think Chadjigeorgiou should pull his face out of Tsakalidis's ***?

Is he on a pay roll by his manager or something?


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## gantelo

what an irony... Turkish manager said the Israili referee was bought and he cost us the game. He was very upset but I think Greece deserved to win mostly because of Turkoglu playing very very poor. It was a great game but I think your coach needs to see a physchiatrist. He was funny whining whenever a refree makes a call against Greece and once in the game it became funnier when a Greek (I dont recall his name) player commited a foul raised his hand like admitting he did make the foul, didnt complain but his coach started yelling, screaming and suddenly he raised his other hand up and said that he just touched the ball and started to whine. It is a part of basketball to try to take referees in control ( a tactic mostly used by Yugos) but this time it was outrageous. And yes, I believe Turkish fans needs to see how to support a team in a basketball game. Greeks were great while our fans chanting like it was a football game. There is not a big basketball tradition in Turkey but we are trying and slowly learning that we shouldnt say GOAALLLL when a basket happens.


----------



## Gousgounis

Good to see that even the most fanatic Turks admit that we won the crowd battle.....
Anyway I was at the Greece-Ukraine....We once again created a great atmoshere (I didn't scream as much as yesterday though because my voice was "destroyed"...Anyway after the game we went to the hotel and met a lot of our players..I shook hands with Sigalas and Tsakalidis (man that guy is HUGE)...We later met a lot of players at town......


----------



## gantelo

I am not a fanatic Turk and we will see who wins the crowd battle in the champions league match of galatasaray and olimpiakos. Good luck and enjoy your basketball victories


----------



## ira

> Originally posted by <b>gantelo</b>!
> we will see who wins the crowd battle in the champions league match of galatasaray and olimpiakos.


now you are getting irrational! 

what`s the big deal in winning the crowd battle in a home game ?


----------



## parso

Is there a chance of a rematch in the semis? 
Greece is way overrated, with a good ref who gets their crazy coach under some sort of control they don't have the talent to compete with our NT. A decent Turkoglu will be enough to put them away... We should have won the game but its not all over yet!!!


----------



## ira

> Originally posted by <b>parso</b>!
> Is there a chance of a rematch in the semis?


no 
greece (or germany) will play against spain in the semifinal



> Originally posted by <b>parso</b>!
> Greece is way overrated, with a good ref who gets their crazy coach under some sort of control they don't have the talent to compete with our NT.


well it seems that the turkish dream-team lost from greece ,won at the last second croatia and had many many troubles againsta ukraine ......


i can`t understand how a ssssooooooooo talented team could have this kind of results....


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## qwertyu

It looks like the "great" Turks can't believe they lost to "little" Greece. hahaha
Oh well you'll get over it one day


----------



## parso

Forget the Ukraine game because it does not a thing and it was the first game of the tournament... The Greek game was fair, there were some questionable calls especially the phantom 4th foul call on Okur but overall the Greek team did play at their max level. Congratulations but dpn't count on that happening again.
The Croat game should have been over with 3 mins to go but the English ref was worse a hater than some of the Greek homers in here...unbelievable calls!
How about the Croats missing 6 FT in the last minute against the Greek NT, how about that? Or was that also the big achievement of your team...(Alvertis does actually do some illegal entering of the zone before the player releases the shot... therefore they should have been granted reapeated shots but thats another topic)


----------



## Zelena Hracka

The turks are complaining about the refs.
The greeks do so as well. 
Likewise the Croats. 

Everybody is complaining about the refs. In a meeting of the officials with the refs after the game of Greece and Croatia 8 situations were identified where wrong calls were given against Greece and 2 against the Croats. And yet, the croats were complaining as much as the greeks. So far I believe the refs have not judged a result. 

What about the block of Diamantidis on Okur? Obviously not a foul. What about the foul on Hedo? Indeed a foul. So far we are 1-1.


----------



## parso

> Originally posted by <b>Zelena Hracka</b>!
> 
> What about the block of Diamantidis on Okur? Obviously not a foul. What about the foul on Hedo? Indeed a foul. So far we are 1-1.


Are you blind or what? That so called block was one of the most obvious calls of the whole game. The guy did hit his arm! Thats a call even in American football... what is wrong with you Greek guys, come on at least try to be a bit objective... you really sound silly at times.
I don't know what Hedo call you mention so I can't comment on that one....

BTW they just anounced that the butcher calling himself a ref from England will also call our game against Serbia. And now he is the head ref... thats outrageous. He definately is biased against us. Which excuse of a ref calls a unsportmenlike foul when there is 3,5 seconds left on the clock; when the one team is up by 3 and has fouls to give before the FT penalty kicks in. I have never seen such a call ... commensense is to foul before they have a chance to shoot a 3. Thats called being a butcher!(No I am not whinning because I am right)


----------



## Zelena Hracka

> Originally posted by <b>parso</b>!
> 
> 
> Are you blind or what? That so called block was one of the most obvious calls of the whole game. The guy did hit his arm! Thats a call even in American football... what is wrong with you Greek guys, come on at least try to be a bit objective... you really sound silly at times.
> I don't know what Hedo call you mention so I can't comment on that one....
> 
> BTW they just anounced that the butcher calling himself a ref from England will also call our game against Serbia. And now he is the head ref... thats outrageous. He definately is biased against us. Which excuse of a ref calls a unsportmenlike foul when there is 3,5 seconds left on the clock; when the one team is up by 3 and has fouls to give before the FT penalty kicks in. I have never seen such a call ... commensense is to foul before they have a chance to shoot a 3. Thats called being a butcher!(No I am not whinning because I am right)


Alright I won't start arguing because obviously we are both too "objective" to have a decent debate here. Nevermind. Good luck against SCG tonight.


----------



## parso

Thanks we need luck with that English ref...do they have basketball over there?


----------



## Gousgounis

Ponese poli vlepo....Den pirazi sta arxidia mas........Tourkos kalos mono nekros.....Tous kseftilisame stin kerkida kai sto gipedo...Ante Geia!!!


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## ira

:-D               

let me see ..... where did i put the serbian flag ......


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## Gousgounis

DING DONG TURKEY IS GONE!!!!!!!!
SERBI-TURKEY 80-76
:bbanana: :vbanana: :banana: :rbanana: :gbanana: :wbanana: :cbanana: :dpepper:


----------



## SEOK

> Originally posted by <b>parso</b>!
> Forget the Ukraine game because it does not a thing and it was the first game of the tournament... The Greek game was fair, there were some questionable calls especially the phantom 4th foul call on Okur but overall the Greek team did play at their max level. Congratulations but dpn't count on that happening again.


In Stockolm? I don't think so. 
In Athens, 2004? No, Turkey won't play there. 
In Belgrade, 2005. Two years. Have a nice time, TV will broadcast Olympic Games...


----------



## Zelena Hracka

*Ton roufiksan pali*

SCG showed again what a great nation they are. Without 7 major players and with Pedja injured from the very beggining, they fought all the way and won deservingly. As always I will cheer for them, even though I have to admit that I did not believe in them.

No Divac, no Bodiroga, no Tarlac, no Radmanovic, no Milicic, no Tomasevic, no Rakosevic, no Cabarkapa, no, no, no... Even with their 7th alternative NT they can beat most of the rest of the NTs.

Srbija! Srbija! Srbija!!


----------



## ira

italy beat germany !!!!!!!! 

what a day! 

the best eurobasket i`ve ever seen!


----------



## Gousgounis

We should beat Italy........I hope we will start to play better now in the play offs (we can play a lot better tha what we did in the group stage)


----------



## ira

> Originally posted by <b>parso</b>!
> Thanks we need luck with that English ref...do they have basketball over there?


well there was a ref from turkey in the last water polo world championship .... do they have water polo over there ?


----------



## Zelena Hracka

*?!?*

Well done to Italy!!!! How did they do that?

I did not expect the to win Dirkmany. Lets hope we will see a nice game between Greece and Italy. Who will you support SEOK?


----------



## SEOK

What's the biggest surprise of the day? 
Italy who won against Germany, or Israel who won against Slovenia? 

Italy and Greece won't score more than 120 points together in their quarter. It's practically sure. 

Italy and Greece playing quarters of final, and Turkey out. I know a certain "Erciyes" and I'd like to listen his opinions right now...


----------



## Zelena Hracka

> Originally posted by <b>ira</b>!
> 
> 
> well there was a ref from turkey in the last water polo world championship .... do they have water polo over there ?



And all by coincidence he tried to kill the greek team in the game against the USA, but eventually...TON ROUFIKSE!


----------



## SEOK

*Re: ?!?*



> Originally posted by <b>Zelena Hracka</b>!
> Well done to Italy!!!! How did they do that?
> 
> I did not expect the to win Dirkmany. Lets hope we will see a nice game between Greece and Italy. Who will you support SEOK?
















































































































Did I answer clearly?


----------



## Zelena Hracka

> Originally posted by <b>SEOK</b>!
> What's the biggest surprise of the day?
> Italy who won against Germany, or Israel who won against Slovenia?
> 
> Italy and Greece won't score more than 120 points together in their quarter. It's practically sure.
> 
> Italy and Greece playing quarters of final, and Turkey out. I know a certain "Erciyes" and I'd like to listen his opinions right now...


Israel and Italy are in the final 8?

Something must be going wrong in this world!

Oh my God (there is no such thing, I'm just talking hypothetically) this is totally outrageous.


----------



## ira

> Originally posted by <b>Zelena Hracka</b>!
> 
> 
> Israel and Italy are in the final 8?
> 
> Something must be going wrong in this world!
> 
> Oh my God (there is no such thing, I'm just talking hypothetically) this is totally outrageous.


don`t you love it ???? 

i haven`t enjoyed so much basketball games since 1994 .... with very few exceptions


----------



## SEOK

It's time for a beer. Weel, great basketball evening, MonteSerbia vs Turkey has been a fantastic, strong, bad game: the "essence of basketball". Not far from Italy vs Germany (I've seen only the last quarter). 

Here we have great quarters, with some surprises like always (Latvia in 2001, and if I'm not wrong Poland played the F8 in 1997). 
Greece vs Italy will be a chess game: Italy knows not to have the same talent of Greeks, but now they are on a enthousiastic wave, they know that "we can what we want". It will not be an easy game, at all. Ioannidis has to work on the head of his players. In this occasion, "the Classical Hellenic Start" (-15 in the first quarter...), can't happen. 

I've lost something... MonteSerbia vs Lithuania, right? This is the European derby of last decade. Will Lithuania pass over its complex against Serbia (always defeated, only at the OG2000 they won) or are we ready to watch another time the same movie? 

Honour to the eight teams that are flying to Stockolm. Honour to the eight teams that have already finished their championship.


----------



## BlackHell

> Originally posted by <b>Zelena Hracka</b>!
> What about the block of Diamantidis on Okur? Obviously not a foul. What about the foul on Hedo? Indeed a foul. So far we are 1-1.


**** man, i was at the game and that block was crazy, to bad we couldnt rewind the tape


----------



## Gousgounis

Another Tournament, Another Dissapointment.....

We started the turnament with big hopes but once again failed.........Our team wasn't playing that well in the friendlies (except for 2-3 games) and it was obvious we were gonna struggle at Eurobasket......
Ioannidis thought that with a super defence team he could lead this team to succes...He forgot about offence...Our offence was a joke..When a player had the ball in his hands he didn't have a clue what to do with it....
NOw some other things about our offence....At the PG position we have no player that can score...From the SG position only Sigalas offered points (about 10-13 points per game)....The players at the SF (Alvertis and Papanikolaou) spot didn't deliver points as well...So basically our PG+SG+SF players were scoring totally maybe 15-17 points per game...You cannot expect a succesful Eurobasket with pathetic numbers like....
Thoughout the whole tournament our only scoring threats were the players at the C spot, PF spot and partly Sigalas........Things wouldn't have been that awful if Diama would have been on the team, if Kakiouzis would have played and if Fotsis would have played the SF spot (Dikoudis and Fotsis are two of our few class players....Our NT is not good enough to be able to have one of them on the bench..They both have to start)...
Also apparently Diamantopoulos was cut because he doesn't play D.....With the same logical Ioannnidis should have cut Rentzias to because he doesn't either playD (or rebound)...Why didn't he do that??????

Anyway the atmosphere doesn't seem to that good in our team (rightfully so)....Knowing the the Greek mentality things won't change easily and our NT will be in deep **** now for the Athens Olympics...
Alvertis and Rentzias didn't like Sigalas comments and the fact that Ioannidis backed up Sigalas comments and they have asked for a meeting with Ioannidis about that......Rentzias and Alvertis can't accept a little critisicism....What kind of sisters....I remember that after the failure of Slovenia at the 2001 Eurobaket the 20 year old Sani Becirovic took all the responsibility for the failure..Of course we suck.....Our veterans (Alvertis, Rentzias) can't accept a little criticism while in other countries 20 year old players take the responsibility for the failure...
Alvertis didn't play at all against Israel so something must have happened (maybe he had an argument with Ioannidis)

Also we saw the difference between a Yugo coach and a Greek coach at the game versus Italy....One of our player was at the casino the whole night before the game versus Italy.....Ioannidis knew who this player was but not only did he play him but also put him in the starting five as always... A Yugo coach like Ivkovic would NEVER do that..

Anyway we failed....We have to go on now.......As alway I doubt that we will learn from our mistakes (we didn't do that the the previous failures why will we now??)
Personally the I would love to see Dusan Ivkovic to take over our NT...Some players have to leave but I won't say that once again since I have said it 1 million times by now...


----------



## qwertyu

> Originally posted by <b>Gousgounis</b>!
> Another Tournament, Another Dissapointment.....
> 
> We started the turnament with big hopes but once again failed.........Our team wasn't playing that well in the friendlies (except for 2-3 games) and it was obvious we were gonna struggle at Eurobasket......
> Ioannidis thought that with a super defence team he could lead this team to succes...He forgot about offence...Our offence was a joke..When a player had the ball in his hands he didn't have a clue what to do with it....
> NOw some other things about our offence....At the PG position we have no player that can score...From the SG position only Sigalas offered points (about 10-13 points per game)....The players at the SF (Alvertis and Papanikolaou) spot didn't deliver points as well...So basically our PG+SG+SF players were scoring totally maybe 15-17 points per game...You cannot expect a succesful Eurobasket with pathetic numbers like....
> Thoughout the whole tournament our only scoring threats were the players at the C spot, PF spot and partly Sigalas........Things wouldn't have been that awful if Diama would have been on the team, if Kakiouzis would have played and if Fotsis would have played the SF spot (Dikoudis and Fotsis are two of our few class players....Our NT is not good enough to be able to have one of them on the bench..They both have to start)...
> Also apparently Diamantopoulos was cut because he doesn't play D.....With the same logical Ioannnidis should have cut Rentzias to because he doesn't either playD (or rebound)...Why didn't he do that??????
> 
> Anyway the atmosphere doesn't seem to that good in our team (rightfully so)....Knowing the the Greek mentality things won't change easily and our NT will be in deep **** now for the Athens Olympics...
> Alvertis and Rentzias didn't like Sigalas comments and the fact that Ioannidis backed up Sigalas comments and they have asked for a meeting with Ioannidis about that......Rentzias and Alvertis can't accept a little critisicism....What kind of sisters....I remember that after the failure of Slovenia at the 2001 Eurobaket the 20 year old Sani Becirovic took all the responsibility for the failure..Of course we suck.....Our veterans (Alvertis, Rentzias) can't accept a little criticism while in other countries 20 year old players take the responsibility for the failure...
> Alvertis didn't play at all against Israel so something must have happened (maybe he had an argument with Ioannidis)
> 
> Also we saw the difference between a Yugo coach and a Greek coach at the game versus Italy....One of our player was at the casino the whole night before the game versus Italy.....Ioannidis knew who this player was but not only did he play him but also put him in the starting five as always... A Yugo coach like Ivkovic would NEVER do that..
> 
> Anyway we failed....We have to go on now.......As alway I doubt that we will learn from our mistakes (we didn't do that the the previous failures why will we now??)
> Personally the I would love to see Dusan Ivkovic to take over our NT...Some players have to leave but I won't say that once again since I have said it 1 million times by now...


Who was the player who went to the casino Gousgouni?

Anyway Ioannidis will be the coach at the Olympics, I just hope the next coach whenever Ioannidis leaves will be Pedoulakis. 

At least we won Israel easily yesterday now we’re playing against Serbia tomorrow. Alvertis didn’t play at all and I wonder if that means he’s finished. The players were missing their free throws again, our percentage from the free throw line was like 50% again. Only Sigalas had 4/4.
And I also agree with you Fotsis and Dikoudis should start together. Papanikolaou has no business being on the team.


----------



## qwertyu

Anyway the games ended and Greece was fifth after winning Israel and Serbia. Unfortunately we played our best basketball when we were already out of the semifinals and when we didn't have any pressure, but with a 5-1 record we certainly deserved better.
So was the 5th place a failure for the team?

One thing I noticed in these games is that if a team doesn't have pressure and enjoys the games thewy can play much better. Just take a look at Lithuania and Italy. Recalkati before the game against France was speaking to the italian tv and he was joking and laughing. Can anyone imagine Ioannidis doing that?

The media in Greece should stop over-rating our team because we become disappointed when the players can't live up to the expectations we have. France had 4 NBAers and they still didn't make it to the Olympics. Germany had Nowitzki, Serbia had NBAers like Stojakovic, Drobjnak and Jaric, Russia had Kirilenko and we still played better than all those teams. 

We should stop trying to find scapegoats every time the team loses a game. Of course Ioannidis made some mistakes. The team should be running more because it's not only ugly to play slow basketball but it's also ineffective. The teamplayed much better against Israel and Serbia when Ioannidis let the players play their game.
Tsakalidis will be the team's center for years. We have some young big guys like Glyniadakis, Schortsianitis and Papadopoulos who oculd make our front court even stronger in the future. 
Fotsis and Dikoudis are the best greek basketball players right now and they both should start. We have a good young scorer like Diamantopoulos. Papaloukas and Diamantidis are not very goos shooters but they are the best we got at that position.
We shouldn't look at the negatives all the time. Next year at the Olympics in Athens we have a better chance to play well.


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## Gousgounis

> Anyway the games ended and Greece was fifth after winning Israel and Serbia. Unfortunately we played our best basketball when we were already out of the semifinals and when we didn't have any pressure, but with a 5-1 record we certainly deserved better.


Tous idious agones idame??????
Just because we had a 5-1 record doesn't mean we deserved better........We had HUGE luck against Croatia (we played crap in that game)...the win against Turkey was well deserved and against Ucraine and Italy we were awful as well...IMO we didn't deserve better..probably the opposite a fifth place is a fantastic place for us considering how awful our team was......That's what I think.....



> The media in Greece should stop over-rating our team because we become disappointed when the players can't live up to the expectations we have. France had 4 NBAers and they still didn't make it to the Olympics. Germany had Nowitzki, Serbia had NBAers like Stojakovic, Drobjnak and Jaric, Russia had Kirilenko and we still played better than all those teams.




We didn't play better than then Russia and France IMO......The YUGO's would beat us rather easily but we were lucky because we were facing a YUGO NT with players like Ostojic, Avdalac and Askrabic....Besides don't forget we are lucky that the Olympics are in Athens otherwise we wouldn't be there




> We shouldn't look at the negatives all the time. Next year at the Olympics in Athens we have a better chance to play well.


Mark my words..our team will fail again next year.......I am not optimistic at all about next year...


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## SEOK

Panionios signed Giannoulis. I post here the news because it could concern the NT too. 
Why? Because Giannoulis, before beeing disqualified, was a very good player. If Giannoulis will find back the athletic, mental and technical shape he had before these 18 months, he could be in the team for the Olympic Games. 
He has been lucky, he will be able to play many minutes with Panionios, without the pression he would have lived in Bologna or Siena, growing, growing and growing. 
Giannoulis at his 100% is still better than any other Greek center (most of all Rentzias...). At least, he puts totally his heart on court.


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