GRE - No Papaloukas but other key men are back for Greece

ATHENS (2010 FIBA World Championship) - Dimitris Diamantidis, Kostas Tsartsaris and Panagiotis Vassilopoulos are back in the Greece squad for this summer after missing EuroBasket 2009 but Theo Papaloukas hasn’t returned to the fold, possibly signaling the end of his international career.

Despite the absence of the four players last year in Poland, new coach Jonas Kazlauskas guided the Greeks to a bronze medal and into the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Papaloukas, 33, was one of the country’s leading players for several years, with one of his most famous games the 101-95 Semi-Final upset of Team USA – a victory that put the Greeks into the world title game.

Spain then blew the Greeks out in the 2006 Final.

Vassilis Spanoulis, Antonis Fotsis, Sofoklis Schortsanitis and Nikos Zisis were also with Greece four years ago and have been included in Kazlauskas’ 17-man preliminary squad.

Spanish-based Georgios Printezis of Unicaja Malaga and Kostas Vasiliades of Xacobeo Blu: Sens are also included.

Printezis was one of the standout performers at the EuroBasket.

Nikos Pappas played at last year’s FIBA U19 World Championship and won silver before capturing gold with the Greeks at the U20 European Championship in Rhodes.

He too is in the preliminary squad.

Greece preliminary squad: Dimitris Diamantidis (Panathinaikos), Kostas Tsartsaris (Panathinaikos), Antonis Fotsis (Panathinaikos), Vassilis Spanoulis (Panathinaikos), Nick Calathes (Panathinaikos), Stratos Perperoglou (Panathinaikos), Giorgos Printezis (Unicaja Malaga), Sofoklis Schortsanitis (Olympiacos), Ioannis Bourousis (Olympiacos), Loukas Mavrokefalidis (Olympiacos), Panagiotis Vasilopoulos (Olympiacos), Kostas Papanikolaou (Olympiacos), Nikos Zisis (Montepashi Siena), Kostas Vasiliadis (Xacobeo Blu: Sens), Kostas Kaimakoglou (Maroussi), Ian Vougioukas (Panellinios) and Nikos Pappas (Colossus of Rhodes).

FIBA