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Greece head coach wants national teams to have 14-man rosters in future FIBA competitions

Dimitris Itoudis Greece

Photo: Twitter/Hellenic Basketball Federation

Dimitris Itoudis, head coach of Greece, made an interesting statement on the number of players each national team can use in FIBA competitions.

The veteran coach suggested that FIBA should change the current rule for 12-man rosters and let national teams have 14-man rosters instead.

“It’s important for this rule to change. The national teams should be able to have 14 players available in the FIBA tournaments. We are leaving in an era of pandemics, the level of competition is more than high in most tournaments and there are also injuries and the fatigue factor.

It’s not fair for a team to end up having 11 players because of an injury. And I can’t think of a reason not to have 14 available players. FIBA makes decisions based on the progress of the sport.

Back in 2000 in the EuroLeague Final Four we had 10-player rosters. We went to 12 players and now I think it’s time to get to 14. I really believe that there’s a strong argument for this evolution,” the Greek head coach told media after the win over Georgia in a preparation game on Thursday, via Eurohoops.net.

Itoudis and Greece are preparing for the upcoming Basketball World Cup Qualifiers (August 24-28) and FIBA EuroBasket (September 1-18).

The head coach of Fenerbahce expects Greece’s opponents to use zone defense and wants his players to improve their numbers significantly against that type of defense.

Greece will wrap up its preparation this week, playing Turkey on Friday. They will then face Serbia (road, August 25) and Belgium (home, August 28) for the Second Round of the Basketball World Cup Qualifiers.

Greece will travel to Milano in late August for the group stage of the EuroBasket, where they will take on hosts Italy, Estonia, Great Britain, Ukraine and Croatia.

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