The National basketball team begins its adventure in World Cup opposite to Jordan (Saturday, 11:45). An opponent against whom the Kostas Papanikolaou he has a lot to remember wearing the Greek shirt.
Greece and Jordan have met just twice before at Men’s level. The first was on July 2, 2012 for the Caracas Pre-Olympic Tournament, where the “official favorite” had won 107-63 (before being eventually eliminated by Nigeria). In this game, his forward Olympiakou record it his record of points in an official match with the Men’s National Team, with 19. His absolute record is 20 points, which he scored on August 17, 2014 in a friendly win over Slovenia in Kaunas (79-71).
The second Papanicolaou milestone coming into Saturday’s match against Jordan. If, as expected, he competes, he will become the team captain the first active player to be capped by the Men’s National Team. It will reach them 139 and will leave behind Nick Calathes, now occupying the 18th place on the relevant list. His next obstacle is the 17th-ranked Vassilis Spanoulis with 146 appearances, but to catch him he will have to play in all eight matches of the tournament (if the Greek team advances to eight, he will certainly play eight matches). The top spots are out of reach, with Panagiotis Giannakis in 351 appearancesPanagiotis Fasoulas at 244 and Fanis Christodoulou at 220, while fourth is the current general manager of the national team, Nikos Zisis with 189.
The other recorded game of the Men’s National Team against Jordan was relatively recent. In its previous trip to Asia, just before the 2019 World Cup, the Greek team had beaten Jordan 92-65 in the city of Suzhou, China, on August 24 (rather than two days ago, exactly four years ago). THE John Antetokounmpo was the highlight of the match for the Chinese fans who rhythmically chanted “MVP”. He played just 20 minutes and had 13 points (3/6 2-pointers, 1/2 3-pointers, 4/7 field goals), 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks. The first scorer was Giorgos Printezis with 17 points (4/5 two-pointers, 2/4 three-pointers, 3/4 shots) while Ioannis Papapetrou (12 points with 6/ 6 two-pointers), Giannoulis Larentzakis (11 points with 3/4 three-pointers) and Giorgos Papagiannis (10 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks).
Source: Sport Fm
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