Slovenia coach Aleksander Sekulic. -MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.web
MANILA, Philippines — After matching its finest end within the Fiba World Cup at seventh place on Saturday, Slovenia is decided to e-book a ticket to the 2024 Paris Video games by means of the Olympic qualifying match subsequent 12 months.
Slovenia duplicated its feat within the 2014 World Cup after surviving Italy, 89-85, behind Luka Doncic’s 29 factors, 10 rebounds, and eight assists at Mall of Asia Area.
The Slovenians failed to achieve the semis and missed their likelihood for an outright Olympic berth after they misplaced to Canada within the quarterfinal final Wednesday whereas World Cup finalists Germany and Serbia emerged as the 2 finest groups from Europe.
Veteran swingman Zoran Dragic admitted the qualifying match will likely be a harder highway for Slovenia to achieve the Olympics however added the workforce will likely be prepared for the problem.
“For certain, we need to qualify for the Olympics however like coach stated it’s gonna be a tricky process as a result of Spain and Greece, they didn’t come to the highest eight and for certain we’re gonna get one good opponent. However at finish of the day, it is advisable to win one to go to the Olympics,” Dragic stated. “For certain it will likely be nice if we have now this match at dwelling, it will likely be even higher. However you already know, we nonetheless [have] time.”
Slovenia throughout a Fiba World Cup classification sport towards Italy. -MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.web
Slovenia, led by Doncic, had a Cinderella run on the Tokyo Video games two years in the past after they made the semifinal of their first-ever look and completed fourth total after shedding to France within the semis and yielding to Australia within the battle for bronze.
Slovenia coach Aleksander Sekulic admitted expectations have been increased for his or her workforce this World Cup however he was nonetheless pleased with his workforce for putting seventh.
“They performed collectively. Regardless of all the issues that we had earlier than the camp for the world championship, through the camp, and through the world championship, particularly with accidents and we by no means complained, gamers by no means complained. We have been all the time in search of options,” Sekulic stated. “Fingers right down to the gamers who got here to this world championship and confirmed their braveness and their dedication to play high-level basketball towards superb groups we performed on this match.”
“It was essential for us to complete [with a] win this World Cup. Clearly, seventh place however we wish extra. However that is life generally you’ve gotten luck however generally no. We’re comfortable that we completed with a win. For that small nation solely two million individuals, I feel it’s a fantastic outcome,” Dragic stated.
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