Biggest EuroBasket Success
Unfortunately, there isn’t much to say good or bad about Croatia’s success in this event. In the 1995 EuroBasket, Croatia had its own “Dream Team”. The national team rushed through the Qualifying and Challenge rounds with seven wins and one insignificant loss to Latvia. Expectations were high, as Croatia played great basketball in Group B. Four wins and two defeats booked a place for the Quarter-finals, but in the end, the girls had to be satisfied with “only” eighth place. But more thing should be remembered as well as the Croats managed to beat reigning champion, Spain, as well as eventual winner Ukraine at EuroBasket Women 1995.

		Ana Lelas was the second leading scorer for Croatia in qualifying with 11.8 ppg.

Biggest EuroBasket disaster
Speaking of disasters, again we have to mention the Czech Republic game in Brno in the summer of 1995. It was the first of two appearances in the EuroBasket for Croatia, as the other one came in 1999, in Poland, as Croatia also finished eight. Looking at the potential, the squad which played in Brno could have reached even a medal. Names like Zana Lelas, Danira Nakic, Koraljka Hlede, Vedrana Grgin (not yet Fonseca), among others, had great hopes. But a quarter-finals loss against Russia blew their dreams away. Then, it can be said that after 1995, Croatia was never again capable of bringing all the best players into the women's National Team, and it was a hard situation to be trying to accomplish any kind of respected results without any stars.

Best Individual Performance/Best Player of All-Time
This title has to go to Danira Bilic. Born in 1969, Danira won an Olympic silver medal with the last Yugoslavian National Team, in Seoul. There, a very young and inexperienced Yugoslavian team finally lost the Gold versus Team USA. In the final, Bilic was brilliant, scoring a game-high 23 points.  Bilic got three times in a row European Player of the Year award (1988-1990). After a playing career she stayed around the basket as a director of a club. Now, she is in politics and a member of the Croatian Parliament. Still, she never strays too far from basketball, with few other players like Franjo Arapovic and Stojko Vrankovic she started a sport aid program that will rebuild 1000 outdoor basketball courts in Croatia.

Scouting report
One thing is for sure, Croatia will play fast, very fast. Coach Linda Andric-Mrdalj will hope for as many transition attacks, using the duo of Mazic and Podrug. Defense and aggressive play could be the trademark for the Adriatic nation in this Eurobasket Women. The reason is simple: compensation for lack of height. Most of this team is born in 1980 or 1981 and those girls won the 8th place in the European junior championship in their early years. All Croatian experts predicted big results for that generation. Here comes the opportunity to prove those expectations were right.

Prediction
For basketball fans in Croatia, the fact that the National Team made it to the 2007 EuroBasket is a success by itself. The result is even bigger when you realise that the best Croatian players like Vedrana Grgin-Fonseca or Koraljka Hlede said goodbye to the National Team a long time ago, even if Sonja Kireta is finally coming back. So this new young squad did their job in the qualifying round and everything they do in Italy will be a kind of bonus. “I would rather have highly motivated young guns, than half-hearted elder players”, were the words of coach Linda Antic-Mrdalj, a few days before the preparation started. Her consistent attitude got her to EuroBasket, where she hopes to lead Croatia at least to the second round. “To get in the Top 12 European teams is our goal. To qualify for the Quarter-finals would than be a great accomplishment, and anything above that is just a dream”. Dreams will have to come true some other time, but the quarter-finals seem reachable.

Likely Squad
Coach Linda Antic-Mrdalj will decide about the squad during the summer. She did not talk about any names, only we can try to put ourselves in her shoes and do the math. The core of the team will be players who played in the qualifying round. But, there will be few names that skipped or missed games. One of the names should be Dea Klein-Sumanovac, the experienced shooter and key player of Medvescak Zagreb who was injured last September, but now is likely to be on the list of travellers to Italy. Also, Sonja Kireta, the 1.98 m center, decided to come back after a long National Team retirement. The best players from the qualifying round, Sandra Mandir, Emilija Podrug and Ana Lelas, will for sure find their place in the starting lineup at the first game.

Last 10 events
Year Event Place Achievement
2006 World Championship Sao Paolo Did not qualify
2005 EuroBasket Ankara Did not qualify
2004 Olympics Athens Did not qualify
2003 EuroBasket Patras Did not qualify
2002 World Championship Nanjing Did not qualify
2001 EuroBasket Le Mans Did not qualify
2000 Olympics Sydney Did not qualify
1999 EuroBasket Katowice 8th
1998 World Championship Berlin Did not qualify
1997 EuroBasket Budapest Did not qualify

How did they qualify
Qualifying round
1st  in Group C (4 W - 2 L)
Results
Sept-6th 2006 *Croatia b. Sweden 76-58
Sept-9th 2006 *Poland b. Croatia 74-72
Sept-13th 2006 Germany b. *Croatia 72-61
Sept-16th 2006 Croatia b. *Sweden 82-71
Sept-20th 2006 *Croatia b. Poland 74-54
Sept-23rd 2006 Croatia b. *Germany 57-49
* home team