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 2023 FIBA World Cup Qualifiers matches on 24 and 27 February 2022 against Hungary.[7]

Montenegro men's national basketball team roster
Players	Coaches
Pos. No. Name Age – Date of birth Height Club Ctr. PG 1 Justin Cobbs 30 – (1991-03-16)16 March 1991 1.90 m (6 ft 3 in) Budućnost G 3 Vladimir Mihailović 31 – (1990-08-10)10 August 1990 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) Mornar PG 4 Nikola Pavličević 33 – (1988-08-13)13 August 1988 1.92 m (6 ft 4 in) Derby G/F 7 Andrija Slavković 23 – (1999-02-15)15 February 1999 2.02 m (6 ft 8 in) Derby F 8 Dino Radončić 23 – (1999-01-08)8 January 1999 2.02 m (6 ft 8 in) Zaragoza F/C 11 Nemanja Radović 30 – (1991-11-11)11 November 1991 2.08 m (6 ft 10 in) Murcia G 12 Jovan Kljajić 20 – (2001-09-11)11 September 2001 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in) Vytautas F/C 14 Bojan Dubljević 30 – (1991-10-24)24 October 1991 2.05 m (6 ft 9 in) Valencia C 19 Zoran Nikolić 25 – (1996-04-01)1 April 1996 2.05 m (6 ft 9 in) Budućnost PF 21 Radosav Spasojević 29 – (1992-02-28)28 February 1992 2.04 m (6 ft 8 in) Sutjeska PG 22 Igor Drobnjak 21 – (2000-04-21)21 April 2000 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) Budućnost G 30 Petar Popović 25 – (1996-09-13)13 September 1996 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in) Budućnost	Head coach Boško Radović Assistant coach(es) Vladimir Todorović Legend (C) Team captain Club – describes last club before the competition Age – describes age on 24 February 2022

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	9–5	None

2011 EuroBasket: finished 21st among 24 teams

4 Nikola Vučević, 5 Goran Jeretin, 6 Boris Bakić, 7 Vlado Šćepanović, 8 Miloš Borisov, 9 Vladimir Mihailović, 10 Omar Cook, 11 Slavko Vraneš, 12 Milko Bjelica, 13 Vladimir Dragičević, 14 Nikola Peković, 15 Vladimir Dašić (Coach: Dejan Radonjić)

2013 EuroBasket: finished 17th among 24 teams

4 Nikola Vučević, 5 Bojan Bakić, 6 Suad Šehović, 7 Aleksa Popović, 8 Sead Šehović, 9 Blagota Sekulić, 10 Nikola Ivanović, 11 Milko Bjelica, 12 Tyrese Rice, 13 Marko Popović, 14 Bojan Dubljević, 15 Vladimir Dašić (Coach: Luka Pavićević)

2017 EuroBasket: finished 13th among 24 teams

2 Tyrese Rice, 4 Nikola Vučević, 6 Suad Šehović, 7 Nikola Pavličević, 8 Dino Radončić, 11 Marko Todorović, 14 Bojan Dubljević, 15 Filip Barović, 17 Vladimir Mihailović, 20 Nikola Ivanović, 21 Nemanja Vranješ, 22 Nemanja Đurišić (Coach: Bogdan Tanjević)

2019 FIBA World Cup: finished 25th among 32 teams

4 Nikola Vučević, 5 Derek Needham, 6 Suad Šehović, 7 Nemanja Radović, 8 Sead Šehović, 10 Aleksa Popović, 11 Marko Todorović, 14 Bojan Dubljević, 20 Nikola Ivanović, 23 Dino Radončić, 30 Petar Popović, 51 Milko Bjelica (Coach: Zvezdan Mitrović)

• Kappa (2008–2011)
• Peak (2011–present)

• VOLI (2008–2011)
• diva (2012–2014)
• EPCG (2014–2015)
• m:tel (2015–present)