The Slovenian national basketball team will play its first second round match at Eurobasket on Thursday evening by taking on an Italian team that went undefeated in the preliminary round.
The last of the group F matches scheduled for the day is expected to see a sold out Stožice Arena rooting on the home team in its bid to reach the quarter finals.
Italy has carried over four points from the preliminary round, four teams (including Slovenia) have three points, while Greece has no points in Group F.
At the last three European championships, in Lithuania, Poland and Spain, two wins in the second round were enough for a berth in the quarter-finals.
Slovenia have made it to the quarter-finals only once, in Poland in 2009, when they took first place in the second round group with three wins in a row and a 4-1 record.
After today's match with Italy, Slovenia will play Greece on Saturday and Finland on Monday.
Slovenian players used the two days off to recuperate and practice. They say that they are ready to take an important step forward in front of the large home crowd in Ljubljana.
"We have a chance to make it to the knock-out stage, but we have to play like we played against Spain.
We have to work hard and be focused for the entire 40 minutes," team captain Jaka Lakovič said.
Slovenia's match with Italy will be preceded by the matches between Croatia and Finland (2:30 PM) and Greece and Spain (5:45 PM).
Source: The Slovenia Times
