Svetislav Pesic hints at Milutinov's start, provides update on Nedovic / News - Basketnews.com

Serbia's head coach Svetislav Pesic hopes that Nikola Milutinov will play his first minutes in EuroBasket 2022 against Poland. Nemanja Nedovic injured his calf, while Vanja Marinkovic will join the team after suffering from a stomach bug.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

Serbia will face Poland in the last match of the group stage of EuroBasket 2022 today.

Serbia / Schedule

Serbia Netherlands100-76 Czech Republic Serbia68-81 Serbia Finland100-70 Israel Serbia78-89 Serbia PolandThu19:00

Heading into the game, Serbia comfortably sits in first place in Group D. However, there are some issues within the team, mainly with injuries among the players.

Most notably, it was recently revealed that Nemanja Nedovic suffered a significant injury, and his participation during the rest of the tournament is in question.

"Nedovic injured his calf, part of the muscle, there is a rupture, we will see how long we will be absent," head coach Svetislav Pesic told the media. "The doctors are making a plan for his recovery, there are still a lot of games. We hope that we will last in the championship."

Nikola Milutinov hasn't played a single game during the EuroBasket so far, while Vanja Marinkovic missed the last two matches against the Czech Republic and Israel due to a stomach bug.

"We hope that Milutinov will play the first minutes tomorrow," Pesic said. "We hope that Vanja Marinkovic will also join the team. We will see in training what the situation is."

"Players like Milutinov, Vanja, and Nedovic mean a lot," Pesic continued. "It disturbs some of our plans. This was all predictable when we started the process. We knew that we would have 12 players instead of 14, although most of the coaches asked for the number to increase."

Greece's head coach Dimitris Itoudis was probably the most notable proponent of increasing the roster size to 14 since there were numerous important injuries on the roster, and Kostas Antetokounmpo still hasn't played a single minute in the EuroBasket.

FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis, however, is against such a proposal.

"We don't have any basketball evidence suggesting we should move in that direction. Quite the contrary, I would say. I should not hide from you that we have had private requests from the opposite of perhaps going down to 11 or 10 men rosters given how limited minutes the 11 and 12 players have," Zagklis revealed to BasketNews.

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