Thus far, the teams of Slovenia and Turkey had an excellent run in the preliminary round and are entering the qualifying round as favorites to advance to the quarterfinals. On Wednesday at 8 p.m. GMT the team of Bogdan Tanjevic will face Slovenia in the last round-robin game before the elimination round.

Coming into the FIBA Eurobasket 2009, the Turkish team was largely considered as an inconsistent team that more often than not was unable to play team-oriented basketball. In fact, the Turks suffered double-digit losses against Croatia and Germany right before the start of the Eurobasket. However, during the first group stage the team around NBA star Hedo Turkoglu really got their act together and pulled off three convincing wins versus Lithuania, Poland and Bulgaria. Thus, they are carrying over two wins to the qualifying round and are only one more win short of reaching the quarterfinals. Unlike other squads, the team is not facing a tremendous amount of pressure to qualify for next year’s FIBA World Championship as they are already qualified as host country.

Similarly, the Slovenian team played extremely well and fascinated the audience with three excellent performances in the preliminary round. More specifically, they took the undisputed favorites from Spain to an overtime showdown and beat Serbia and Great Britain in their other two games.

In terms of individual talent both teams are fairly even as each of them has its fare share of NBA players and Euroleague veterans. Without any doubts, Turkey will count on Hedo Turkoglu from the Toronto Raptors and Ersan Ilyasova from the Milwaukee Bucks to lead their team. In contrast, Slovenia will field Beno Udrih from the Sacramento Kings, Primo Brezec who recently signed with the Philadelphia 76ers and Goran Dragic from the Phoenix Suns. However, Slovenia has been able to play more consistently as a team than Turkey which might give them a slight edge going into the game. Nonetheless, the Turks can be expected to leave it all on the floor in order to clinch another victory.

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