FIBA Basketball World Cup Legend: Nikos Galis

MADRID (FIBA Basketball World Cup) - Nikos Galis has a special place in international basketball's rich sporting history.

The 1.83m guard, one of the most explosive scorers ever to don the Greece national team shirt, is fondly remembered for his leading role in the country's stunning run to the 1987 European Championship title on home soil.

People still marvel at how Galis poured in the points, game after game.

He started with 44-point outbursts in his first two outings that summer in wins over Romania and Yugoslavia.

Perhaps the most famous performance of all was his 40-point eruption against the Soviet Union in the Gold Medal Game, a 103-101 upset for the Greeks that fueled interest in the sport in Europe and the international game as a whole.

He averaged 37 points per game at that European Championship and was named the tournament's MVP.

Basketball fans might have been able to predict that such a performance was about to happen because one year earlier, at the 1986 FIBA World Championship in Spain, Galis had an unrivaled ability to put the ball in the hoop.

He averaged a tournament-best 33.7 points per game that summer, with the legendary Brazilian Oscar Schmidt (28.1ppg) a distant second.

Galis had a jaw-dropping 53-point effort in a 110-81 victory over Panama to start the tournament, and 49 points in Greece's last game against China, a 112-111 defeat.

Galis, who made a name for himself in the United States while playing college baseball at Seton Hall from 1975-79, was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame as a member of the 2007 class.

FIBA