| | | | While Turkey has slowly been building up to the championships, its preparation has not been the best, with poor form in preliminary matches and concerns over the health of some players.
The draw hasn’t done Turkey any favours either, with Croatia, Greece and Friday night’s opponent Ukraine the other teams in Group D.
Both Hidayet Türkolu, who now plies his trade with the US team the San Antonio Spurs and Hüseyin Be?ok have a question mark over their fitness, the former having only just overcome illness and the later injury.
On the plus side of the ledger is that Ukraine will be without some of its big names, the injured Vitaly Potapenko and Stanislav Medvedenko, who ruled himself out of the tournament. Both play in the NBA and it will be hard for the Ukraine to cover their absence.
While Turkish coach Aydn Ors has said he is confident that his team can do the job against Ukraine, it won’t be easy, especially if the opposition start using the physical play they are known for.
Not only will Turkey be hoping getting its Eurobasket campaign off to a good start, it will also be well aware that it needs to do well in the tournament to qualify for next year’s Olympics in Athens.
Turkish television station NTV will be broadcasting the Turkey-Ukraine match at 7.00 pm local time. NTV will also be screening all of Turkey’s Eurobasket games live throughout the tournament. | |
