As the FIBA U22 Championship reached its final stage, all of the teams moved from Maribor and Postojna towards Slovenian capital Ljubljana. Everyone understood the importance of the last two games - though some teams were playing for their pride and 5-8th places, the pressure was especially true for the teams who were in the top four.
Italy - Greece was a first semi final to be played, and
Belarus was facing the #1 team from group B
- Spain in the later game.
Psychologically, no matter how hard players try not to think about the importance of the crucial games, it is usually a tough task to manage as all of their thoughts are related to the game in one way or another. The signs are everywhere: players are carefully choosing what to eat for breakfast and, all of a sudden, teammates stop to joke as much, and one can hear the annoying sound of silverware hitting the plates' ceramic during a team lunch. There is also silence in a video room while the team is watching scouting video and the intensity is mixed in the air with occasional remarks from coaches... Everyone realizes that an opportunity to win European Championship might never present itself again.
As we jumped for joy and celebrated our victory in Ljubljana, little did we know that Belarus team will never be assembled according to its current 1994 roster ever again. That is the saddest part of modern team sports in general, and basketball in particular. We were young and when you young you don't think about things like this ... Not that thinking would help or change the flow of events that soon followed.
It turns out that there were some US College coaches among the fans in Slovenia and they had the eyes on our team. Their names were Mike Jarvis and Scott Beeten. As the story goes, Alexander Koul and Andrei Sviridov - the two 7' footers (2m10cm) - were the first to safely depart to the U.S. soil and join The George Washington Colonials for the 1994/95 season. Andrei Krivonos and I had followed that path a year later, after winning yet another Belarus Championship title in 1995.
