Yugoslavia goes wild over fifth world championship
Douglas Hamilton, Reuters, Belgrade
A wave of national pride and joy swept Yugoslavia early on Monday as the country's basketball team won the world championship for the fifth time and the second consecutive, beating Argentina in an 84-77 thriller in Indianapolis. Indiana.
In downtown Belgrade over 150,000 fans filled the streets well beyond midnight with deafening parades of honking cars, firecrackers, flags, whistles and boisterous singing, accompanied by occasional bursts of gunfire.
It was the biggest street party in Belgrade since the regime of former president Slobodan Milosevic was ousted in October, 2000.
This will be the last time Yugoslavia win the World championship -- the country, a federation made up of Serbia and Montenegro, will cease to exist by the end of this year as the two republics form a looser union under a new name.
In the bronze medal game, Dirk Nowitzki scored 29 points to lead Germany to a 117-94 win over New Zealand, giving Germany (6- 3) its first world championship medal.
Yugoslavia (7-2) claimed its fifth world championship, with previous wins coming in 1970, 1978, 1990 and 1998.
It was also the country's 10th medal at the competition, pulling Yugoslavia one ahead of the United States for most total medals.
That they won their fifth title by beating the Americans and winning the title on U.S. soil made this year's win all that much sweeter, said coach Svetislav Pesic.
Yugoslavia had to overcome an eight-point deficit with just two and-a-half minutes to play in regulation time before finally defeating Argentina, which also beat the U.S. this week, in overtime.
The U.S. wound up in sixth place, its worst showing ever.
It was the first medal for Argentina (8-1) at the tournament since a gold medal win in 1950 at the inaugural championships in Buenos Aires and their lack of recent championship game experience probably was a factor in the loss.
Yugoslavia led the tightly-contested game 41-39 at the half, with six lead changes and another nine ties in the opening 20 minutes.
But Argentina held Yugoslavia to just 11 points in the third quarter to lead 57-52 heading to the fourth quarter.
Yugoslavia rallied, however, and tied the game on a pair of free throws by Dejan Bodiroga with 17.4 seconds to go.
Bodiroja earlier scored nine consecutive points in regulation time to rally his team back from a 74-66 deficit.
Vlade Divac had a chance to win the game when he went to the free throw line with 5.9 seconds remaining, but he missed both throws, sending the game into overtime tied 75-75.
Yugoslavia then out-scored Argentina 9-2 in the extra period, breaking the tie on a 3-point jumper from Predrag Stojakovic 1:15 into the overtime.
The world champion never relinquished that lead, with the rest of the points in the extra period coming on foul shots.
"I feel so bad for Argentina, they played so well and deserved to win," said Divac, who had just three points and made just one field goal. "It's a big day for us, for me especially, because it's my last game for the national team.
"I couldn't be happier."
Bodiroja had 27 points for Yugoslavia, while Stojakovic had 26.
Fabricio Oberto led Argentina with 28 points and 10 rebounds, while Ruben Wolkowyski and Luis Scola both added 11 points.