Montenegro men's national basketball team

Nikola Peković with Montenegro national team in 2010

In 2006, the Basketball Federation of Montenegro along with this team joined the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) on its own following the Independence of Montenegro.

The Montenegrin national team entered international competition in 2008,[2] and appointed Duško Vujošević as the national coach. Montenegro started from FIBA Division B, where they won first place in their first competitive season. Since becoming a separate team, Montenegro has won 13 official games in a row, until losing to Israel in August 2010.

At that time, NBA players like Nikola Vučević and Nikola Peković became the most known players of Montenegrin national team.

In their first qualifiers for EuroBasket, Montenegro finished first in the group. So, the team qualified for Eurobasket 2011, where they played five games in the first phase - with one win and four losses. The Coach of Montenegro at their first-ever EuroBasket was Dejan Radonjić.

In August 2012, with the new coach Luka Pavićević, Montenegro started qualifiers for Eurobasket 2013. Again, they won first place, but without any defeat from 10 matches. Notable matches were against Serbia, first after the two countries separated. Montenegro won both games, and victory in Belgrade (73:71), in front of 18,000 spectators, is gained by Nikola Ivanović three-point shot from the center, one second before the end of the match.[3][4]

As the first-place team in qualifiers, Montenegro participated at Eurobasket 2013 in Slovenia. They made better results than 2011, with two wins and three defeats, but that was not enough for the second phase of EuroBasket.

First unsuccessful qualifying campaign since independence, Montenegro had during the 2014. Surprisingly, group stage at the EuroBasket 2015 qualification, Montenegro finished third, so they failed to qualify for the final tournament.

Nikola Vučević

In 2015, Montenegro named Bogdan Tanjević new head coach of the national team. Prior to taking the reigns of the national team, he was the head coach of Fenerbahçe. As the national team earlier failed to qualify for EuroBasket 2015, they participated in the Games of the Small States of Europe (European countries with less than a million citizens) in Iceland and easily won the gold medal.

In summer 2016, Montenegro started competition in EuroBasket 2017 qualifiers, with the only ambition to qualify for their third final tournament since independence. In a group with Georgia, Slovakia and Albania, Montenegro finished as a second-place team, with one defeat, and qualified for EuroBasket 2017.

For the first time in their history, in Eurobasket 2017, Montenegro finished as a third-place team in the group stage and qualified to the knockout stage. At that time, that was the biggest success of the Montenegrin national team since its independence in 2006. Two years later, Montenegro qualified for the 2019 FIBA World Cup for the first time, after a winner-take-all game in Podgorica against Latvia. Montenegro lost the game 80-74 but still went through as they had won the away game 84-75, thus holding the tiebreaker on points difference. With that result, Montenegro became the smallest state by population and territory to qualify for the FIBA World Cup since the establishing of competition.

Roster for the EuroBasket 2022 Qualifiers matches played on 27 and 29 November 2020 against Germany and Great Britain.[6]

Montenegro men's national basketball team roster
Players	Coaches
Pos. No. Name Age – Date of birth Height Club Ctr. PG 1 Justin Cobbs 29 – (1991-03-16)16 March 1991 1.90 m (6 ft 3 in) Budućnost F 6 Suad Šehović 33 – (1987-02-19)19 February 1987 1.97 m (6 ft 6 in) Budućnost PF 7 Danilo Nikolić 27 – (1993-04-08)8 April 1993 2.05 m (6 ft 9 in) Budućnost F 8 Dino Radončić 21 – (1999-01-08)8 January 1999 2.02 m (6 ft 8 in) Zaragoza C 11 Marko Simonović 21 – (1999-10-15)15 October 1999 2.14 m (7 ft 0 in) Olimpija C 19 Zoran Nikolić 24 – (1996-04-01)1 April 1996 2.13 m (7 ft 0 in) Budućnost PG 20 Nikola Ivanović 26 – (1994-02-19)19 February 1994 1.90 m (6 ft 3 in) Budućnost F 22 Emir Hadžibegović 24 – (1996-08-24)24 August 1996 2.04 m (6 ft 8 in) Studentski SG 41 Nemanja Vranješ 32 – (1988-05-11)11 May 1988 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in) Mornar F 42 Nemanja Đurišić 28 – (1992-02-23)23 February 1992 2.03 m (6 ft 8 in) Estudiantes SG 44 Fedor Žugić 17 – (2003-09-18)18 September 2003 1.96 m (6 ft 5 in) Budućnost PF 51 Milko Bjelica 36 – (1984-06-04)4 June 1984 2.07 m (6 ft 9 in) Mornar	Head coach Boško Radović Assistant coach(es) Blagota Sekulić Vladimir Todorović Legend (C) Team captain Club – describes last club before the competition Age – describes age on 27 November 2020

Since independence, all head coaches were Montenegrin-born. The first head coach of Montenegro was Duško Vujošević. With him, Montenegro won the FIBA B division championship (2009). From 2010 to 2012, Montenegro was coached by Dejan Radonjić, who led the national team to their first EuroBasket (2011). At their next Eurobasket participation (2013), Montenegro was led by Luka Pavićević. From 2015 to 2017, the head coach of Montenegro was Bogdan Tanjević, who led Montenegro to their first-ever Second phase games at the Eurobasket (2016). After that tournament, the Basketball Federation of Montenegro named Zvezdan Mitrović new head coach of the national team. During his mandate, Montenegro for the first time qualified for the World Cup (2019), as the smallest state to ever play at the global tournament.

Years	Name	Record	Competitions
2007–2010	Duško Vujošević	10–0	None
2010–2012	Dejan Radonjić	7–6	EuroBasket 2011 (21st)
2012–2014	Luka Pavićević	15–6	EuroBasket 2013 (17th)
2015–2017	Bogdan Tanjević	15–5	GSS 2015 (1st); EuroBasket 2017 (13th); GSS 2017 (2nd)
2017–2019	Zvezdan Mitrović	12–9	GSS 2019 (1st); World Cup 2019 (25th)
2019–present	Boško Radović	2–2	None

Below is the list of performances of Montenegro national basketball team against every single opponent.

Opponents' country	G	W	L	PD
Albania	2	2	0	+78
Andorra	2	2	0	+61
Austria	2	2	0	+46
Belarus	2	2	0	+35
Bosnia and Herzegovina	2	0	2	-14
Brazil	1	0	1	-11
Bulgaria	2	2	0	+17
Croatia	2	0	2	-10
Cyprus	2	1	1	+33
Czech Republic	1	1	0	+13
Denmark	2	2	0	+52
Estonia	2	2	0	+22
Finland	3	2	1	+28
France	1	0	1	-19
Georgia	2	1	1	-4
Great Britain	1	1	0	+7
Greece	2	0	2	-41
Hungary	1	1	0	+24
Iceland	7	7	0	+134
Israel	6	4	2	+8
Italy	2	1	1	+8
Japan	1	1	0	+15
Latvia	6	3	3	+6
Lithuania	1	0	1	-7
Luxembourg	3	3	0	+51
Macedonia	2	2	0	+6
Malta	1	1	0	+13
Netherlands	4	2	2	+14
New Zealand	1	0	1	-10
Romania	1	1	0	+17
San Marino	1	1	0	+63
Serbia	3	3	0	+19
Slovakia	4	4	0	+114
Slovenia	2	1	1	+1
Spain	3	0	3	-64
Sweden	2	2	0	+37
Turkey	3	1	2	-10
Ukraine	2	2	0	+8
OVERALL	87	60	27	+759

Last update: 28 February 2020

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