GRE - Zouros: This is a team for the future

BAMBERG (EuroBasket 2011) - Greece have collected 2005 gold, 2009 bronze and a 2007 fourth place at the last three EuroBasket tournaments. But new Greece national team coach Ilias Zouros is missing six of the 12 players from the tournament two summers ago in Poland as well as six from the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Despite not having names such as Dimitrios Diamantidis, Vassilis Spanoulis, Sofoklis Schortsantitis and Kostas Tsartsaris, Zouros still will have the services of 2005 European champions Ioannis Bourousis, Nikos Zisis and Antonio Fotsis at EuroBasket 2011.

Filling the void of those star veterans is a group of superbly successful players from Greece’s youth medal winning teams at the European and world level, among them Kostas Koufos, Kostas Papanikolaou and Kostas Sloukas as well as reigning Euroleague champion Nick Calathes – all four of them born 1989 or 1990.

And that quartet played a big role in Greece winning all three games to collect first place at the BEKO Supercup in Bamberg. And they will have to be in form against Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, F.Y.R. of Macedonia and Qualifying Team 2 in Group C in Alytus.

FIBA talked to Zouros about his team’s preparations for EuroBasket; the young players getting into the team; and the hopes of reaching the 2012 Olympics.

FIBA: Coach Zouros, your team seems in fine form less than two weeks before EuroBasket 2011. How do you see the state of your team at the present moment?
Ilias Zouros: Our weapon is defense and we have to play defense. We have a young team this year. We have changed many things. The most important thing is to play as a team – defensively and offensively. This is where we can make a difference. You can have a bad day offensively, that’s why we focus and insist on playing defense.

FIBA: There are a number of young players on this team, how have they come into the team?
Zouros: I am very satisfied with the young guys. They bring enthusiasm. They don’t have the experience but you need to get the experience. This team is for the future. It’s not for now, it’s for the future.

FIBA: What did you tell the veterans of the team?
Zouros: The veterans have to help the young kids as it happened when they were young. Now it’s important that everybody is together so the atmosphere is good.

FIBA: How important are the Olympics for the Greeks?
Zouros: Important is the next game and the next practice. At the end of the tournament we will see what we did. This is our job. We have a new team. We need to be better and better. We need chemistry. For the moment the atmosphere is very good but we have to continue the same way. So we cannot speak about the Olympic Games. We can only talk about the first game of the tournament in Lithuania.

FIBA