FIBA Basketball World Cup Legend: Ivo Daneu

MADRID (FIBA Basketball World Cup) - Slovenia has taken center stage in September as the host nation for EuroBasket 2013.

Fans are living and dying on every defensive play, jump shot and turnover.

The 24-team tournament is serving as a qualifying event for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup and the Slovenians are desperate to not only play next year but to do so on the back of a medal-winning performance.

An intimidating chant from the fans heard over and over again in Celje, where the national team has had its first round games, was "Kdor ne sake ni Slovenc hej hej hej". In English, it means: "He who doesn't jump isn't Slovenian, hey, hey, hey".

It will be heard in Ljubljana, too, as long as Slovenia stay alive in the competition, because that's where the rest of the EuroBasket is to be staged.

While the Dragic brothers, Goran and Zoran, Edo Muric, Domen Lorbek and Jaka Blazic are the ones doing a lot of the jumping for the national team in 2013, Slovenia hasn't forgotten its legendary guard Ivo Daneu.

Daneu is still revered in Slovenia because of his game-winning plays and unyielding attitude for the former Yugoslavia in the 1960s and 1970s.

He helped fire the team to second-place finishes at the 1963 and 1967 editions of the FIBA World Championship in Brazil and Uruguay, respectively.

That second event, held in the capital city Montevideo, was memorable for many reasons.

Games were played in 'The Cylinder,' an 18,000 seat steel and concrete stadium.

Players had to cope with cold air, with the temperature inside the arena a bone-chilling 35 degrees Fahrenheit (1.66 Celsius).

It was so cold that organizers provided blankets and electric heaters to benches to help keep the players warm during games.

Maybe because he hailed from Slovenia, the conditions didn't bother Daneu.

The 1.84m guard averaged 15 points per game and was named MVP of the 1967 FIBA World Championship.

He capped his international career three years later with a title at the 1970 FIBA World Championship in front of his beloved fans in Ljubljana.

A member of the FIBA Hall of Fame, Daneu also graced the Olympic stage, playing at the Summer Games in Rome (1960), Tokyo (1964) and Mexico City (1968).

In Mexico, Daneu and Yugoslavia won the silver medal.

Daneu, who was born in Maribor in 1937, moved to Ljubljana as a boy and played basketball for Slovenian giants Olimpija. The club has retired his No. 13 jersey.

In stark contrast to the sport today, leading players like Daneu didn't reap much financial compensation from the sport.

The game was not professional and Daneu had to have a job outside of the game.

In an interview with FIBA.com, Daneu remembered the old days.

"The fact that I became world champion at home in Ljubljana just before I ended my basketball career was in one way a very lucky thing," he said.

"I was thinking of retiring from the sport two years before, because I started going to work in 1960 and it was hard combining it all.

"We were not professional basketball players at that time.

"We received very little money back then."

Slovenia have players now who compete for clubs in the best leagues in the world, including the NBA where Goran Dragic is a star with the Phoenix Suns.

Nothing makes the hair on the back of the neck stand up to this day when the nickname 'El Grande Daneu' is heard.

FIBA