Netherlands ready for road to Zagreb

AMSTERDAM (EuroBasket 2015) - Netherlands national team coaches Toon van Helfteren and Sam Jones have selected 14 players for the preliminary squad for EuroBasket 2015.

Cholet Basket center Nicolas de Jong and Yannick Franke of Challenge Sports Rotterdam will make their debuts.

Franke finished as top scorer of the regular season in the Dutch Basketball League at 19.5 points per game.

Charlon Kloof is another to have been named in the squad.

A player with Istanbul DSI in Turkey, he got his first (unofficial) minutes in the national team last February, during the All-Star Game in Den Bosch, The Netherlands.

The most experienced players in the team are Kees Akerboom and Arvin Slagter, a couple of standouts coming off a title-winning campaign with SPM Shoeters Den Bosch.

Slagter spoke with great enthusiasm about the EuroBasket to FIBA.com.

Both are lynchpins in the national team.

Akerboom has played a total number of 80 official international games while Slagter has worn the Orange jersey 79 times.

Another SPM Shoeters Den Bosch player, Ralf de Pagter, is also on the 14-man roster.

Top teams Donar Groningen and Zorg and Zekerheid Leiden each have two players in the Dutch squad.

For Groningen, Sean Cunningham and Thomas Koenis will represent the Netherlands.

Out of Leiden are Worthy de Jong and Mohamed Kherrazi.

Five players are selected from teams in foreign competitions.

In addition to Nicolas de Jong and Charlon Kloof, the players from foreign teams are Henk Norel of CAI Zaragoza in Spain, Roeland Schaftenaar of Rethymno Aegean BC in Greece and Robin Smeulders of EWE Baskets Oldenburg in Germany.

Schaftenaar was one of the heroes of the Dutch team in last year's qualifying campaign.

Leon Williams of Landstede Basketball Zwolle completes the squad.

The Orange Lions will start practicing for EuroBasket 2015 on 1 July.

Much of this summer, before the Dutch team departs for Croatia and their Group C games against Greece, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (MKD), Georgia, Slovenia and hosts Croatia, the national team will promote basketball in the Netherlands by paying visits to the Streetball Masters Tour and various training camps for kids.

On Wednesday 12 August, the Orange Lions will play the University of Illinois in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Two days later at ijf Meihal in Leiden, the Van Helfteren's team will host a three-nations tournament.

The Dutch will play Great Britain on 14 August, and two days later, Portugal.

The Netherlands will also square off against Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Iceland, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania and Turkey in their warm-ups for EuroBasket 2015.

Netherlands preliminary squad for EuroBasket 2015: Kees Akerboom, Sean Cunningham, Yannick Franke, Nicolas de Jong, Worthy de Jong, Mohamed Kherrazi, Charlon Kloof, Thomas Koenis, Henk Norel, Ralf de Pagter, Roeland Schaftenaar, Arvin Slagter, Robin Smeulders, Leon Williams.

Go to eurobasket2015.org for full coverage of EuroBasket 2015.

FIBA