LILLE (France) - He said before flying to France that playing the FIBA EuroBasket 2015 and finishing fourth at the Pierre Mauroy Stadium was one of his worst memories with the national team.
After putting up a 30-point performance against South Sudan, those memories are long gone now.
"I had to make Lille a bit better in my memories. This was nice. It finished nice here," Bogdan Bogdanovic said.
"But now I have another bad memory from Bercy which I have to erase."
He didn't get into too much detail, but he was there in 2010 as a 17-year-old, playing the Nike International Junior Tournament with FMP, suffering an injury in the Final against INSEP.
For Bogdanovic, the bigger heartbreak happened next door. That's where his boyhood club Partizan Belgrade played a major European competition Final Four, losing two dramatic overtime games and finishing fourth.
One of those two defeats was against Olympiacos, with Milos Teodosic playing a major role on the other side, hurting Partizan with 17 points.
Fast forward to 2024, Bogdanovic and Teodosic are now a part of the same sentence: Bogdan overtook Milos and he is now the top scorer in Serbian national basketball team history.
"I knew about it, I'm not gonna lie. But it wasn't the thing that was pushing me, the result of the game (against South Sudan) was pushing me forward. That's the way game went, I wasn't chasing the record, and I probably wouldn't have gotten it without those two fouls shots late in the game," Bogdanovic said after his 1058th point for Serbia.
Teodosic scored 1057, while Dejan Bodiroga is the only other player with 1000+, finishing his career with 1023 points for the national team.
The Atlanta Hawks sharpshooter will celebrate his 32nd birthday in two weeks' time. He still has a lot of basketball ahead of him, a lot of time to improve those numbers, but he admits they could become irrelevant already on Tuesday.
"This is something which sound beautiful right now, but if we lose in the Quarter-Finals, it won't matter. Of course I'm happy, I knew it was coming up, and in a way, I'm happy I got it done before the Quarter-Finals. Now I don't have to think about it anymore."
Up next, it's Australia. He smiled a bit when talking about the matchup, because he knows there could be something special when he meets his friend and former Hawks teammate Patty Mills.
I know Patty was waiting for this tournament all year long
"I know Patty was waiting for this tournament all year long. We prepared together, we motivated each other for the Olympics, that's why I'm happy I get to compete with him in the Quarter-Finals now."
Patty scored 28 points in a preparation game this summer, handing Serbia a double digit defeat. Bogdanovic sat that game out, but he still believes there were lessons to be learned in Abu Dhabi.
"We know each other very well. Sure, we played a preparation game, but when we warm up and get out on the court, we're competing and trying to win the game, there's no relaxing in any way, or playing soft. It will be hard, but it's the Quarter-Finals, the most important game of the tournament."
In a way, it could come in handy that Serbia faced South Sudan just before their game with Australia, because it seems that Royal Ivey's men have a lot of same ideas on the court as the Boomers.
"It will be a tricky game, I'd say they have a similar style to South Sudan, playing fast, shooting a lot of threes, playing with a lot of highlights, fighting, playing throughout all 40 minutes. They seem well prepared."
However, the solution to the game plan isn't all that simple - if Australia prefer fast basketball, Serbia will just lower the pace down and win.
"You cannot relax against them. You cannot let them run, and if you slow the game down too much, they'll speed it up and overtake you. So it's not exactly that simple, we'll slow it down and that's it. Basketball doesn't work that way anymore. We also need to be fast, follow the rhythm, hit our shots, run when possible and get some easy points."
The easiest way to prepare for this one is just to rewatch the 2016 Semi-Finals. That's when Bogdanovic, Jokic and the rest of the Serbian team deleted Australia off the court, allowing them just 15 first half points, en route to an 87-61 win and a spot in the Final.
Bogdanovic and Jokic are the only two returning members for Serbia from that game. Patty Mills, Joe Ingles and Matthew Dellavedova are still here for Australia.
FIBA