Omar Cook to play for Montenegro

[rikhardur]

Omar Cook had an outstanding campaign as a guard in Serbia's top flight with Red Star Belgrade and now he'll try to continue his dominance in the Balkans after agreeing to play for Montenegro's national team.

Cook, a native of Brooklyn, New York, who played college basketball at St John's University, was the Adriatic League's fourth leading scorer.

He recently became a citizen of Montenegro, which neighbours Serbia.

"This is a big opportunity for me," the 26-year-old said to the Montenegrin newspaper Vijesti.

"Montenegro has plenty of quality players and a great coach. All of that will give me another big chance to raise the level of my performances. My decision to play for Montenegro was tough, but I'm sure I've made the right choice.

Cook, who averaged 14.8 points, three steals and 6.9 assists for Red Star in the domestic league, finished the season in the country's domestic play-off semi-finals.

His "red-and-whites" lost that series 2-0 to reigning champions Partizan Belgrade.

On that Partizan team was Nikola Pekovic, the Montenegro national team center. Partizan are also coached by Montenegro's national team boss, Dusko Vujosevic.

"Pekovic is the best in Europe at his position," Cook said. "With him under the basket, it will be much easier for me as a playmaker. I don't know the other players at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to being in the same team with Pekovic. Up to now, we've played against each other, but in Belgrade we've become friends, not just rivals on the court."

Danilo Mitrovic, the Montenegro Basketball Federation supremo, welcomed Cook's decision to become a citizen of Montenegro.

"We've solved our biggest problem, the playmaker position in our national team," Mitrovic said.

"With him as point guard, I really don't have a doubt that we'll win promotion from EuroBasket Division B. Cook, (Vlado) Scepanovic, (Djuro) Ostojic, (Predrag) Drobnjak will help our youngsters through the forthcoming qualifications, and I think we won't have any problems against Iceland, Holland, Austria and Denmark.

"In fact, I think we would have been successful even if we were playing qualification games for the EuroBasket in Poland."

http://www.fibaeurope.com/coid_Id2Qup4CH...de_on.html