BARCELONA (FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers) - Sergio Scariolo admits the Spanish national team may have performed better than many expected in last November's first games of FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers and the Spain head coach does not want to make too many changes to that winning formula as he looks ahead to next month's fixtures.

Spain tipped off their Group A campaign with a 79-66 win at Montenegro and followed that up with a 92-84 victory on home soil over FIBA EuroBasket 2017 champions Slovenia.

"Nobody expected that we would win the two games like that against tough teams who had 50 percent of more of the teams who were at EuroBasket," Scariolo said.

"WE DON'T WANT TO CHANGE TOO MUCH, AND INSTEAD STAY ON THE SAME TRACK BUT MAYBE IMPROVE A LITTLE BIT. WE CAN START NOT FROM PAGE ONE BUT FROM PAGE 50 OR WHATEVER. WE ALREADY HAVE SOME BASKETBALL BEHIND US AS A TEAM" ScarioloScariolo

According to the Italian play caller, preparation and attitude were two of the biggest reasons for Spain's success.

"I think we did a good job preparing it since last summer. What gave us an advantage compared with the other countries from last summer was that we had a specific training camp with a big nucleus of this team which we knew would probably be competing in this competition. Seven or eight of them were there. We started to put it together and made sure they knew the system," Scariolo explained.

The coaching staff followed up with those players early this club season and sent them playbooks and videos, so that when the team came together in November they were already schooled in what the team wanted to do.

"WHAT GAVE US AN ADVANTAGE COMPARED WITH THE OTHER (EUROPEAN) COUNTRIES FROM LAST SUMMER WAS THAT WE HAD A SPECIFIC TRAINING CAMP WITH A BIG NUCLEUS OF THIS TEAM WHICH WE KNEW WOULD PROBABLY BE COMPETING IN THE QUALIFIERS"

"We started the training camp with a big part of the job done," Scariolo said.

The 56-year-old said the players also had a great attitude heading into the Qualifiers.

"Whether young or veteran, they came in with only one desire: to prove they can deal with the situation and be part of one of the most respected teams in modern European basketball history," he recalled. "Combining the little preparation advantage that we had and the great attitude of the players, we overachieved."

With most everything going right in the first window, Scariolo said he really does not want to change too much for the second window of the Qualifiers, when Spain will play at Belarus on February 23 and then at home against Montenegro on February 26.

"We don't want to change too much, stay on the same track but maybe improve a little bit," Scariolo said.  "We can start not from page one but from page 50 or whatever. We already have some basketball behind us as a team.

"Maybe we can make some adjustments. We also might have some more players who we had counted on but were injured in the first window."

Now comes a bit of a wait and see period for Scariolo.

"We know we will lose the advantage of being the team which probably prepared better in the previous month to this," he said. "But we believe we can keep the second part: the attitude and togetherness of the players who were part of the team."

FIBA