Big changes needed after Turkey's roasting in the European Basketball Championships

FAN NEWS (Utku Ertan, Sportingo) - They now host the 2010 tournament, but some of coach Bogdan Tanjevic's tactics must be called into question.

All Turkey will be very happy that the European Basketball Championship are over for the Turkish team, regarded by the authorities as one of the favourites after Spain, Greece and Lithuenia, before the games began.

Without a guard and a leader, the team could only beat the Czechs with a high three-point average, and lost five  games all in the same style, except against Italy. In that game, Hedo played extremely well, producing 34 points and taking the team to overtime. However, he alone could not salvage the game for Turkey.

It is really very difficult to comment on the team's performance because they came last in all statistics such as per game score average, assists, three-point average, free throw average etc.  Turkey play an out-of-date game  which is slow in both offence and defene, not moving the ball and finding the right shooter or finding baskets in the paint.

National team coach Bogdan Tanjevic seems to adopt confusing tactics, substituting each and every player whether he performs well or not. He substituted the best player, Kaya Peker, against Italy, and admited after the game that it was a big mistake. There was no team chemistry, nothing positive to write about the coach or the players. No team could be worse than this even if they tried to be.

For me, this result was to be expected. European basketball is really tough, fast and athletic. When you look at the Turkish team they are not tough enough, they play the ball slowly and they don't have too many athletes. Most of the players dread going into the basket. They would rather shoot at distance from the basket.

When you look at the play-makers in the team there are three young and ineffective guards. Engin Atsür, Hakan Demirel and Ender Arslan cannot stand comparison with Calderon, Diamantidis, Papaloukas, Tony Parker, Jasikevicius, Lakovic and Holden etc. If your guard isn't experienced enough to organize your team, how can you expect the team to go into quarter-finals?

Right now we look forward to the 2010 World Basketball Championships in Turkey. Is Solomon seems the only solution for guard position, and he is also willing to join the Turkish squad? Turkey need to take some tough decisions immediately, otherwise they will just be the organisers for the Championships.


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* This article is written by a basketball fan and is based on personnal opinions that does not reflect the views of FIBA. Fan articles are part of the Sportingo Network and are brought to you for discussion & opinion matters.