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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 guide a ticket to the 2024 Paris Video games by way of the Olympic qualifying event 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 probability for an outright Olympic berth once they lost to Canada in 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 event will probably be a more durable highway for Slovenia to achieve the Olympics however added the workforce will probably be prepared for the problem.
“For positive, we wish to qualify for the Olympics however like coach mentioned it’s gonna be a troublesome job as a result of Spain and Greece, they didn’t come to the highest eight and for positive we’re gonna get one good opponent. However at finish of the day, it is advisable win one to go to the Olympics,” Dragic mentioned. “For positive will probably be nice if we’ve this event at dwelling, will probably be even higher. However you realize, 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 once they made the semifinal of their first-ever look and completed fourth general after dropping to France within the semis and yielding to Australia within the battle for bronze.
Slovenia coach Aleksander Sekulic admitted expectations had been greater 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, throughout the camp, and throughout the world championship, particularly with accidents and we by no means complained, gamers by no means complained. We had been at all times on the lookout for options,” Sekulic mentioned. “Fingers right down to the gamers who got here to this world championship and confirmed their braveness and their willpower to play high-level basketball towards wonderful groups we performed on this event.”
“It was crucial for us to complete [with a] win this World Cup. Clearly, seventh place however we wish extra. However that is life generally you’ve got luck however generally no. We’re pleased that we completed with a win. For that small nation solely two million individuals, I feel it’s a fantastic outcome,” Dragic mentioned.
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