Europe's team of mystery

VALENCIA (Jeff Taylor's Eurovision) - Croatia made some headlines this week when national team coach Aleksandar Petrovic announced the list of candidates for the team's FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Turin.

There was no Ante Tomic, the Barcelona center who has been a much better player for his club than country in his career. The 29-year-old wasn't available.

There was no Marko Popovic, the veteran shooting guard who put off retirement this season to play for Fuenlabrada in Spain and has surpassed expectations. The 33-year-old has averaged 12 points per game for a team that is surprisingly knocking on the door of the Liga Endesa play-offs.

Instead, Petrovic included Justin Hamilton, an American born-and-bred center who has excelled with Valencia Basket this season.

Hamilton, a 2.13m pivot who steps outside and drills 3-pointers - he has nailed 42 percent (25 of 59) this season in Spain's top flight - has a mother that hails from Croatia.

Petrovic revealed, however, that Croatia have been told that Hamilton would have to be selected as a naturalized player. With teams only allowed one of those, Hamilton would be in competition with Dontaye Draper and Oliver Lafayette, a couple of guards that have featured for Croatia before, for a spot on the 12-man roster.

Lafayette (CRO) played at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup

Draper's best tournament with Croatia was EuroBasket 2013 while Lafayette played at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. He was supposed to feature last year, too, but got hurt and Croatia got Draper to rejoin the team for the EuroBasket in Zagreb and France. Petrovic may deem it more important to use the naturalized spot on a guard.

So, as Petrovic considers his options, the rest of us wait and wonder. Might this be a Croatia team that will do something special this summer and get back to the Olympics?

Croatia flattered to deceive last summer. They won a bevy of games in their warm-up for EuroBasket 2015 under coach Velimir Perasovic but once the competition started, Croatia did not turn on all cylinders. They left the tournament after a Round of 16 demolition to the Czech Republic.

The early exit was the latest disappointment for a country that always shows a lot of promise but rarely delivers. Croatia have had legendary players like the late Drazen Petrovic, Aleksandar's brother. Toni Kukoc captured NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls and Dino Radja played in the NBA, too.

All three tasted success on the international stage but that was a long time ago.The country's last podium finish at senior team level was in 1995 at the EuroBasket in Athens. Croatia claimed the silver medal at the 1992 Olympics, bronze at the EuroBasket the following year in Germany and bronze again at the 1994 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Croatia have had flashes of great play the past two decades. They impressed in 2008, for example, by going to the 12-team OQT in Athens and qualifying for the Beijing Games. Popovic was in that team.

At EuroBasket 2013 in Slovenia, Croatia reeled off eight straight wins before losing to Lithuania in the Semi-Finals and then falling in a heavy defeat to Spain in the Third-Place Game.

The last two summers have been difficult. The team suffered a narrow Round of 16 exit at the hands of France at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Last year was far worse. Croatia endured an 80-59 nightmare against the Czechs, a team they were expected to beat.

When you look at the list of players that Petrovic has drawn up, the real cause for hope in the Croatia camp these days is with the youngsters. There are a lot of good, young players. Dario Saric of Anadolu Efes now has three summers of the national team under his belt and Mario Hezonja of the Orlando Magic a couple.

There is also that incredible bright and talented group that played at the FIBA U19 World Championship last year in Crete, the one that reached the Final and came within a made free-throw in the closing seconds of beating the USA. They fell in overtime.

Marko Arapovic, Ivica Zubac and Luka Bozic were standouts in that team that have been named as candidates for this year's OQT squad. Dragan Bender was also in squad before leaving the team because of a shoe contract dispute.

The brightest talent of all may have been the coach, Ante Nazor, which was something I wrote about after the tournament.

So what type of Croatian performance are we going to witness this summer? The OQT will be staged from 4-9 July in Italy. We just never know when it comes to this team. For me, it's the biggest mystery team in all of Europe.

Tunisia and Italy will be their opponents in Group B of the OQT and potential games against Greece, Iran and Mexico will follow.

Maybe the best way to put it is this: don't count them out, but don't count them in, either.

Jeff Taylor

FIBA

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