In the third and final day of the Acropolis tournament Slovenia recorded their first win beating Canada comfortably while the game between the Serbs and the Greeks never ended due to Ivkovic, Teodosic and Krstic.
Slovenia was determined not to return to Ljubljana without a win and tonight they showed some signs of what they are capable of. With Jaka Lakovic showing the way the Slovenians cruised past Canada 86-71.
After Canada leading 4-0, Slovenia never looked back as they ran a 17-2 score and took a comfortable lead and finished the first quarter at 21-14. With Uros Slikar at great form Slovenia expanded their lead to 41-32 at the half time.
Same image in the second half and Slovenians leading 66-47 at the end of it. In the fourth and last quarter the difference reached even 23 points (75-53) and the game ended at 86-71.
Both teams have something to complain about as both Primoz Brezec and Jermaine Bucknor got injured and had to abandon the game.
Score by quarters: 21-14, 43-32, 66-47, 86-71
Slovenia: Slokar 10, Lakovic 19, Udrih 13, Klobucar, Nachbar 11, G. Dragic 4, Jagodnik 2, Zupan 7, Vidmar 7, Brezec 6, Rizvic 7, Z. Dragic
Canada: Anderson 3, Kepkay 4, Bell 1, Bucknor 4, Brown 7, Famutimi 6, Doornekamp 4, Sacre 6, Shepherd 13, Kendall 4, Anthony 11, Olynyk 8
And now to the spicy part of the day where the Serbia-Greece game was blown up in the air after the misbehaviour of the Serbs and especially coach Dusan Ivkovic and players Nenad Krstic and Milos Teodosic.
Not much to say about the game itself as everybody’s attention was on the fights that occurred during the game. In the beginning of the fourth quarter Dusan Ivkovic was called with a technical foul for disagreeing with the refs. And that was it… after the first technical the Serb coach was out of his mind and started criticising the ref (who was Greek): “You let my player suffer the foul and then warn my player for acting. you don’t have a personality and I say what I see. You are a very little person, you shall remember this night. I believe in God and I honestly believe that you the worst human being in the arena.” were some of the words told by Ivkovic to the unfortunate referee of the game.
After Ivkovic was convinced to leave the court (after five minutes), the players started their “show”. First it was Fotsis with Teodosic who started slapping (!!!) each other and then the “big guys” took over as Krstic punched Schortsianitis and when Big Sofo tried to retaliate Bourousis (who was not even playing as he was injured) entered the court and tried to stop him, only to have his head opened wide open by Krstic, using a chair!!!
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So much for Greece and Serbia friendship… as the fight also continued in the locker rooms… where the two teams headed after the fights, the Serbs drawing some objects from outraged Greek fans…
For the history Greece was leading 74-73 when the game was stopped. There are already rumours that several players might get severely punished by FIBA, a ban which will be carried to the World Championship games!
Score by quarters: 23-24, 42-41, 58-54, 74-73…
Serbia: Keselj 8, Tepic 9, Teodosic 17, Paunic 4, Bjelica, Markovic, Savanovic 8, Raduljica 2, Krstic 16, Perovic 2, Velickovic 4, Rasic 3
Greece: Zisis 10, Spanoulis 17, Calathes 5, Fotsis 7, Printezis 2, Perperoglou, Tsartsaris 5, Diamantides 6, Vouyoukas 4, Schortsianitis 18
