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My Personal Experiences watching the 1994 Croatian NT - Part 1 |
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Written by Nick Ruzich
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Tuesday, 24 November 2009 20:34 |
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Despite only seeing the Croatian NT playing twice in person, I believe I might be a curse.
Exhibit 1 – 1994 World Championships in Toronto
For those who remember, leading up to the tournament everyone believed that a Dream Team II – Croatia gold medal match up was inevitable. After all, Lithuania had failed to even qualify for the tournament, and defending European champion Germany was missing Detlef Schrempf and Christian Welp. Led by Toni Kukoc and Dino Radja, as well as the shot blocking and rebounding of Stojan Vrankovic and Arijan Komazec coming into his own as a scorer, Croatia did nothing to show that they wouldn’t be a finalist heading into the semi-finals by going 6-0 thorough the first two rounds. Radja was averaging 23.5 PPG, Komazec 18.9 PPG, and Kukoc, despite not scoring a lot, was averaging an incredible 8.5 assists per game. Being 16 years old at the time, I wasn’t able to make it to any of the preliminary games. My brother had been to two games, against Australia and Canada, where the crowd support was so pro-Croatia you would have thought that the games were being played there.
Local Fan Support
I finally got to go to a game, getting tickets with my dad and some others to go to the semi-final game against Russia at the Skydome (now Rogers Centre). Everyone was confident heading into the game that Croatia would pull it out. Well, we all know how it turned out: Croatia struggled with their shooting, and despite making some good runs, never held the lead and lost 66-64. Radja shot 4-16 (and 8-14 from the line), Kukoc was 2-8 with only 2 assists, and despite leading the team with 22 points, Komazec shot 2-10 form 2-point range. Needless to say I was shocked. Of course they managed to beat Greece for the second time to win the bronze, so they finished the tournament at 7-1 and their only loss was the one game I attended. Of course, this was the second of three major tournaments in a row that they lost a semi-final game that they were expected to win, so maybe I’m not the only one who feels like a curse.
Croatian NT starting lineup (from my view in the upper deck)
Exhibit 2 is coming soon…
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