MIES (Switzerland) - Stats aren't the only indicator of a player's dominance. But they do present a decent picture of how strong that individual is performing. And a look at the stats leaders from the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup 2013 showed that Dario Saric was dominant.
Saric had already built up an illustrious youth national team career before playing the tournament in Prague, which was actually his second FIBA U19 World Cup.
In the FIBA U19 World Cup 2011, the Croatian star averaged a double-double of 18.1 points and 10.1 rebounds to go with 3.4 assists in helping the team finish eighth - losing to Argentina in the Quarter-Finals.
Saric was named the Most Valuable Player as he guided Croatia to the titles at the FIBA U16 EuroBasket 2010 and FIBA U18 EuroBasket 2012. He registered a triple-double of 30 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in the U16 EuroBasket Final and then in 2012 collected 39 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks for efficiency of 47 in the Final as Croatia beat Lithuania 88-76 in Vilnius. Saric ended up first in the tournament in scoring (25.6 ppg) and second in rebounds (10.1 rpg).
Saric was nominated for the FIBA Europe Young Player of the Year Award in 2010, 2011 and 2012 - finishing second in 2012. He would eventually win the honor for his 2013 year. Saric also competed twice for the World Team at the Nike Hoop Summit in 2011 and 2012.
Saric was actually late to the Croatian camp for the 2013 U19 World Cup as he was helping Cibona win the 2013 Croatian Cup and Croatian League championship, taking home the MVP award for the Croatian finals.
And Saric didn't disappoint in the Czechia capital on the global stage. He opened the tournament with a monster performance of 32 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists for the first triple-double on the FIBA books as records for the first four U19 World Cups (1979, 1983, 1987 and 1991) included only points among the three triple-double stats. And blocks have only been recorded since 2003.
It has been documented that Efthimios Rentzias had a triple-double of 33 points, 21 rebounds and 10 blocks in Greece’s win over Australia in the 1995 U19 FIBA World Cup Final.
Saric's dominance continued for Croatia, including 23 points and 14 rebounds versus Spain; 19 points and 18 rebounds against Argentina; and 27 points and 9 rebounds against Iran - his first game without 10+ rebounds.
Saric totalled 30 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals in the Quarter-Finals against Serbia, but they were not enough as Croatia lost 73-66. He then picked up 20 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists in the Classification 5-8 game - a loss to Spain.
That left Saric averaging 22.4 points, 12.3 points and 5.5 assists with one classification game to go. At that point in the tournament, he was second in scoring - 181 to 179 accumulated points behind Canada's Tyler Ennis; tops in rebounds; and tops in assists - 5.5 to 5.4 for Czechia's Radovan Kouril.
Saric was close to becoming the fourth player to lead a U19 World Cup in two of the big three stats. Rentzias topped the 1995 leaderboards in points (22.8 ppg) and rebounds (12.3); Brazilian Paulo Prestas did the same in 2007 (23.0 ppg, 14.7 rpg); and Jonas Valanciunas matched the feat for Lithuania in 2011 (23.0 ppg, 13.9 rpg).
Saric, however, played only 5 minutes in the Classification 7-8 game against China and totaled 4 points and 3 rebounds. While he kept his lead in rebounds with 11.2 per game, Saric could not pass Ennis in scoring - taking second place 20.3 to the Canadian's 20.9 points per game. And Kouril dished out 7 assists in Czechia's final game and finished with 5.7 dimes per game to 4.9 for Saric, who finished second.
Those stats were more than enough to earn Saric a spot on the All-Star Five along with MVP Aaron Gordon and Jahili Okafor of champions United States, Vasilije Micic from runners-up Serbia and Dante Exum from fourth-placed finishers Australia.
That wasn't the end of Saric's impressive summer as the 19-year-old moved into the training camp of the Croatian senior national team ahead of the FIBA EuroBasket 2013. Saric a summer earlier had made his senior debut in the EuroBasket 2013 Qualifiers.
He was accepted right away in a team with established veterans like Ante Tomic, Krunoslav Simon, Roko Leni Ukic, Damjan Rudez, Damir Markota and Dontaye Draper as well as Bojan Bogdanovic, who was 5 years older than Saric.
The youngster served his role off the bench, scoring 5.5 points to go with 3.2 rebounds, topped by 12 points against Georgia and 11 points versus Czechia in the first round. Saric chipped in 7 points and 3 rebounds as Croatia beat Ukraine 84-72 in the Quarter-Finals to reach their first Semi-Finals since the second of back-to-back third place finishes in 1993 and 1995. Croatia would end up going home empty-handed with a Semi-Finals loss to Lithuania and then falling to Spain in the Third Place Game.
Saric's role with the senior team in the EuroBasket showed how strong a player he already was at age 19 - something everyone could see by what he did at the FIBA U19 World Cup just a couple months prior.
FIBA