Friday, 28.07.2006	posted by Cindy Garcia-Bennett  12:41pm
Category: FIBA World Championship

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HOLD ON TO YOUR SHORTS, SANI

LJUBLIANA (FIBA World Championship) - One of the fringe benefits of covering sports for a living is that sometimes you get very different and unexpected rewards.

That was the case a month before the Athens Olympics when Pau Gasol signed a Memphis Grizzlies jersey for me, and that was also the case last year in Belgrade when surprisingly, Sani Becirovic said, "Yes" when I asked him if he would give me one of his Slovenia jerseys after the tournament.

Sani and Slovenia were among the hot topics at the EuroBasket after arriving at the quarter-final stage on the back of three straight wins.

They were confident of not only qualifying for the FIBA World Championship for the first time, they believed, with a last eight showdown against Germany awaiting them, that a medal was going to be theirs.

Unfortunately for Slovenia, they ran into Dirk Nowitzki and a German side that was on quite a roll and lost that game but that didn't wipe the smile off their faces because really, for Sani and his team-mates, the number one aim was to reach Japan, and they still had a chance to achieve that.

Ultimately, Slovenia did win their first classification game which assured them of travelling to the Far East next month and Sani kept his word but not his shorts.

Indeed, I left Belgrade with a baggy pair of green Slovenian national team shorts signed by Sani.

The jersey, I'm sure, awaits me in Japan since I'll be keeping a close eye on Slovenia in Group D.

I do think that if Slovenia play to their full potential, they could be a surprise package and go far in Japan.

Sani, who has been a star with Climamio Bologna and is close to a move to Greek giants Panathinaikos, and Jaka Lakovic is a big-time guard who just left Pana for Winterthur Barcelona.

They also have several NBA players like Charlotte Bobcats center Primoz Brezec and Toronto big man Rasho Nesterovic.

Yes, the more I think about it, Slovenia have a very good chance of making some noise in Japan.