By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Rok Stipcevic is a familiar face to European basketball fans, especially in Italy and in his home country, Croatia. Despite the fact that the 32-year-old guard has played on 10 different teams, three of them are Croatian (Zadar, Borik Puntamika, Cibona), five of them were Italian (Varese, Milano, Pesaro, Roma, Sassari) and for one year he played in Turkey with Tofas.
Until the start of this season, he had never left the area of the Mediterranean Sea, the southeastern part of Europe, if you like. And nobody expected him to do.
However, he remained a free agent during the whole summer, waiting for the right opportunity. After Chris Kramer’s injury, Rytas Vilnius needed a boost in their backcourt and Stipcevic was the right man for the job.
This was proven beyond any doubt last week, in the team’s crucial overtime win against FIAT Turin in the 7DAYS EuroCup. Stipcevic had career highs of 6 three-pointers made, 31 points and a 41 performance index rating in the victory that proved enough for Rytas to reach a Top 16 qualification.
“After three years with Sassari, I decided not to sign ‘anywhere,'” Stipcevic told Eurohoops. “What I mean is that I had my two personal coaches in my hometown, one for conditioning and one for basketball skills. I decided to spend all summer practicing harder than ever between the FIBA windows and waiting for the right club.”
The conditions were pretty specific: “I waited for a club playing in good European competition, competitive in every league they are part of, which would also be a good organization, followed by passionate fans and will also have a good, reputable coach.” So simply put: “Rytas was the perfect match.”
And as they say, the rest is history. Stipcevic left his mark in Rytas’s qualification and he wants more: “The team was kind of unlucky, still has some injury issues, but step by step we are growing and we still have a lot to give. So I do believe that we can turn heads in the right direction!”
It will not be easy. No matter what will happen this week, Rytas will finish fourth in Group D and will be part of Top 16 Group E, together with AS Monaco, the second-best team of Group B – which will be either ALBA Berlin or Lokomotiv Kuban – and the third-best team of Group C.
Simply put, Rytas will again be the underdog. And that doesn’t change the mentality of Stipcevic at all:
“In clubs like this, the goals are always set high. The important thing is to grow individually and as a team with good practice day by day, and then everything will click. Reaching the Top 16 was one of our goals; now we will aim for the quarterfinals. It’s the same with our domestic LKL league in Lithuania. We aim for the finals and of course, when you are in the finals, you play to win.”
As they say, so far, so good. And the addition of Stipcevic proved to be the key for that in the first part of Rytas’s season.