VALENCIA (Jeff Taylor's Eurovision) - Imagine you're in Kyiv, Donetsk or Odessa, you look at Twitter and discover ex-Ukraine boss Mike Fratello is going to coach the USA in qualifiers for the AmeriCup.

"Dang (or the equivalent in Ukrainian) ," you might say. "I wish he was still our coach."

Judging from his performance at the helm of Ukraine from FIBA EuroBasket 2011 through the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, Fratello is going to take the job very seriously and do well.

A coach with a combined 17 years at the helm of Atlanta, Cleveland and Memphis, and one that is also famous for his work as a color analyst on television broadcasts of NBA games, Fratello's entry to international basketball with Ukraine in early March, 2011, seemed to come out of nowhere.

"THIS IS ONE OF THE ULTIMATE THINGS YOU COULD EVER ASK FOR – BEING ABLE TO TRY AND PUT A TEAM TOGETHER THAT REPRESENTS YOUR COUNTRY, WHAT COULD BE BETTER THAN THAT?"- Mike Fratello

He proved to be a good hire. And the appointment had in fact not come out of nowhere. Fratello this week recalled what had happened.

"Sasha Volkov, who was president of the Ukraine basketball national team and had played for me in Atlanta, called and asked if I would coach their national team," he said. "I thought it would be a great opportunity, I had never coached in Europe before.

"I did it for four summers, for the Euro Championship (2011), the next year the qualifying for the next year’s Euro Championship, then a second Euro Championship, which we then qualified in that one for the World Cup (2014), which was the first time that the country had qualified for the World Cup. It was a great little run we had working with those guys."

Volkov reached out to his former coach because he'd wanted to bring credibility to the Ukraine national team.

Fratello did. He coached the players as if it were the most important job of his life. He showed them how to believe in themselves. He inspired them.

Volkov, after Ukraine's surprise sixth-place finish at EuroBasket 2013 under Fratello, was proved right.

"Mike Fratello is like a father for me," Volkov said after that tournament.

"He did so many things to change my life. In basketball especially ... how he was demanding and took every little detail seriously. He opened up basketball for me."

The aim as the coach of Ukraine was to create a winning culture. It was about having someone look at things differently.

Fratello struck a chord with his players, and especially the young ones. He uncovered a gem in Olexandr Mishula, a virtually unknown 21-year-old Dnipropetrovsk-born guard that played big minutes in key situations.

Fratello and national team assistant coach, Bob Hill, had a special connection with young center Kyryl Natyazhko.

"You could tell they had a lot of trust in me in the games and I appreciated it," Natyazhko said. "It gave me a lot of confidence and the will to work on my game."

Mishula (No. 6)  and Natyazhko (No. 10) thrived under Fratello

Even now, people involved in Ukrainian basketball have only good things to say about Fratello. A Ukrainian sports journalist friend messaged a reply to me when I asked about the coach.

"It's safe to say he created the Ukraine national team program from the ground floor and got it to some unbelievable heights," he said. "Only kind words about him from everyone here in Ukraine."

USA Basketball know that in their last AmeriCup experience under Jeff Van Gundy, and the Americas Qualifiers, that the team has to be ready for every opponent. A potential upset is just around the corner. Qualifying will consist of three windows, and each window will feature two games. The first window is February 20-24. The USA will play at Puerto Rico on February 20 before taking on the Boricuas on February 23 in America.

Fratello won't take anything for granted. His players now have a coach that has been in the business a very long time. He'll be good for them.

Fratello is excited about getting back into international basketball.

"This is one of the ultimate things you could ever ask for – being able to try and put a team together that represents your country, what could be better than that?" he said. "I’ve coached at every level really – high school, college, NBA, and then international, and now it's international for your own country which is as good as it gets. It’s a great honor and I'm thrilled to have it."

Jeff Taylor
FIBA

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