TBILISI (FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers) - Expectations remain high for Georgia's national team in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers, despite defeats at Germany and Serbia last November.

Remember, this country's national team has appeared at every FIBA EuroBasket since 2011 and played some wonderful basketball.

Despite being shorthanded in November's Qualifiers, Georgia were nevertheless very tough opponents when falling 79-70 at Germany and 105-87 at Serbia. The Georgians led 61-60 at the end of the third quarter against the Germans before the hosts outscored them 19-9 in the final frame to pull away. In a similar fashion, the Serbs secured the victory by outscoring the visitors from Georgia 40-26 over the last 13 minutes.

"What I believe is that we tried to do our best with the players that we had in our hands at that moment," Georgia coach Ilias Zouros said to FIBA.basketball. "It's very difficult to get the best performance of the players when you don't have enough time. These windows start during the season with most of the players that never played with the national team."

Zouros is able to look back and cite some positives from those two games.

"The good thing at least in these games is that we showed some new players, some young players that never played with the national team or some young players that played last summer with us a little bit," he said. "These players have more time, have a chance to improve, a chance to be more useful and have more responsibility for the game."

One of those who grabbed his chance with both hands was Merab Bokolishvili, who played more than 30 minutes in each of his first competitive games with the national team and shot a combined 6 of 8 from three-point range.

"THE GOOD THING AT LEAST IN THESE GAMES IS THAT WE SHOWED SOME NEW PLAYER, SOME YOUNG PLAYERS THAT NEVER PLAYED WITH THE NATIONAL TEAM OR SOME YOUNG PLAYER THAT PLAYED LAST SUMMER WITH US A LITTLE BIT" - Zouros

Another was 29-year-old Mikhail Berishvili, who played almost 34 minutes at Germany and had 15 points on 5 of 9 shooting from long range. In just over 26 minutes against Serbia, he had 11 points and was 3 of 4 from behind the arc. 

Those are two players that Zouros hopes will get even better, along with 18-year-old center Goga Bitadze.

Bitadze, 18, played extensive minutes against Serbia

A member of Georgia's side at last year's U20 European Championship, where he averaged almost 11 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, the 6ft 11in (2.10m) pivot played just under 21 minutes against Serbia and had 8 points and 4 rebounds.

There are other youngsters Zouros wants contributions from, as well as established naturalized Georgia point guard Michael Dixon, who will only join the team the day before their game at Austria.

Zouros doesn't know yet if George Tsintsadze, one of his injured stars who missed the November games, will recover in time to face Austria and Germany this month.

Georgia will play at Austria in Schwechat on February 23 and then two days later host Germany in Tbilisi.

Zouros knows the Austria game is a big one

"The most difficult game for us is Austria," Zouros said. "We know that one team from the group will go to the second division and we know we don't deserve to go there, but we have injuries, we miss some good players.

"We can't talk about Germany (February 25). They're a very good team with good quality, players that played in a good championship with Bayern Munich ... the main game is Austria. This is our goal, to win this game."

FIBA