August 30 Top Performers: Santos, Waters, Bogdanovic, Jovic, Milutinov

MANILA (PHILIPPINES) - We had our first takeover of the daily Top Performers list as there was one team that had a staggering three players among the very best on August 30.

Yago Santos was quite instrumental in Brazil avoiding a rather big scare against Cote d'Ivoire and making it to the Second Round thanks to an 89-77 win. Santos set the world on fire with 19 points in the first half, without even missing from long range (5-of-5). The point guard closed out the game with 24 points, 12 assists and 4 rebounds, also making his mark with the fifth best single-game amount of assists in World Cup games since data was tracked in 1994.

Fellow point guard and fine assist aficionado Tremont Waters also was invaluable for his nation's goals of advancing past the group stage as Puerto Rico took care of China with a 107-89 victory. Waters collected 22 points, 6 assists, 4 steals and 3 rebounds, making 9-of-14 shots from the field. He still remains ahead of the rest as the World Cup leader with 8.7 assists per game.

Not only did Bogdan Bogdanovic show up to score, but he also made sure to spread the ball around in Serbia's 115-83 triumph against South Sudan. It probably doesn't even surprise anybody that he was 6-of-9 from 3-point range en route to 23 points, nor are the 3 steals anything out of the ordinary. However, the guard also threw in 9 assists for good measure, a repeat career-high for him when representing Serbia in major FIBA events.

Next up is Bogi's fellow teammate Nikola Jovic, who managed to snatch the TCL Player of the Game award from the Atlanta Hawks guard. Want to know how? Well, efficiency was definitely the name of the game for the 20-year-old who checked out of the game with 25 points, 3 assists and 2 rebounds. More importantly, he was 9-of-9 from the field, knocking down all five of his 3-pointers. Don't tell anyone our little secret, but we have a feeling that somebody might be in the running for the Wanda Rising Star Award.

And, hey, lookie here! It's not only a Top Performers return by Nikola Milutinov, but also the third Serbia player on today's list. The center went to work in his typical fundamental manner in an effort of 17 points, 10 rebounds and 3 assists. Milutinov is in the company of Jonas Valanciunas and Joshua Hawkinson as one of the three players to average a double-double after three games in this World Cup.

 
We certainly can't choose one from these five. How about you?

FIBA