by Eurohoops Team / [email protected]
Turkey National Basketball Team Head Coach Orhun Ene made a statement to NTV Spor before the Olympic Qualifications to be held in Canada between 29 June – 4 July.
Ene’s explanations regarding the preparation process are as follows:
“We need to divide the preparation period into two. In the first part, we started with the players who were not included in this squad before. We worked with our players who were eliminated in the first round and could not qualify for the playoffs. Our aim here was to see EuroLeague and NBA players who may not be with us in November. We sent the majority of that staff to Canada after a 2-week study. With the participation of Cedi Osman, hopefully with the participation of Furkan Korkmaz, we will work with a new staff. We played 2 friendly matches with the team that will take part in the Olympic Qualifications in Canada. We struggled to keep the team healthy. As you know, this is not an easy thing in the pandemic. In this process, it is not possible to play many friendly matches; It’s important to go there healthy. In this process, we have players who have had COVID, have been vaccinated and have not. We made an effort to get there with our best staff. Maybe we played few friendly matches, but it is not easy to enter and exit many countries and participate in tournaments. We tried to spend this process with training as much as possible. We played more balanced in the first of the 2 matches we played against Russia; We couldn’t play the game we wanted in the second time. However, these 2 matches are not an indication for the basketball we will play in the qualifiers, because as everyone who is interested in sports knows, the friendly matches are different from the tournament matches. We have a potential; With the juxtaposition of young players and experienced names, a potential team was formed in this regard. We will have a much wider rotation with the participation of players such as Ömer Faruk, Cedi, Furkan and Ersan from the NBA, in this squad formed in the matches we played. When we reveal this potential, a good game emerges like the first game we played with Russia. We will do everything we can to unleash this potential. We will have a long time until the European Championship next year, together with the World Cup window matches. In this process, we want to show a strong basketball; I hope the process works in our favor.”
Regarding the staff structure, he said:
“First of all, our self-confidence came back. One of our biggest problems – as I know from my acting and coaching periods – is that we have a mental structure that breaks very quickly. It also stems from our own culture; We set out with very big goals, everyone expects great success from us. We must do our best to achieve these successes. Tournaments are places where continuity should be. You can play badly in a match, but if you are a good team and your mental self-confidence is good, you can get a good start. We couldn’t manage these breaking moments. These window matches were very important in terms of managing mental breakdown. We played 4 matches and won 3 of them. We got a new level of basketball there. On top of that, we need time to further strengthen our basketball structure together with friends who will deepen the squad. We have potential; We have as much luck as anyone else in the tournament in Canada. In order to reveal this potential, our friends need to be very strong mentally. Unfortunately, due to the problems experienced by EuroLeague and FIBA, we cannot do the basketball preparation as before, with the tournaments overlapping. There are no such things as long camps in the summer. Since this traffic is getting longer, we focus on the mental strengthening of the players rather than the technical work, this is how we will aim for success. Our squad is deeper now, we are more confident as basketball.”
A National Team Head Coach Orhun Ene also evaluated his opponents in the Olympic Qualifications:
“As we saw in the European Championship Qualifiers, every country in the world plays good basketball when it comes together. Not with individual contributions to that level; You can respond by blending those skills with team play. Fortunately, we have such a potential, but when we put it on the field as a team, we can play better against Uruguay. Already in the last World Cup, we lost our chance to stay in the last 8 by losing to Czechia. It is a country that ranks 5th in the world ranking. They have good basketball schools; They have been playing together for a long time. Two difficult matches await us. We are confident in our potential and in ourselves. I believe that when we reflect that potential on the field, we will show our difference. In the second group, each match will be a final. I hope that when we leave the group, our self-confidence will be higher and we will play better basketball at that stage. First of all, the most important thing is not to get into an accident in the group.”
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