Milwaukee Bucks: National team wins for Ersan Ilyasova, Travis Trice

As the latest window of FIBA World Cup qualifiers wrapped up, there were wins for Milwaukee Bucks duo Ersan Ilyasova and Travis Trice.

It was a very successful week on the international stage for the Milwaukee Bucks, as both Ersan Ilyasova and Travis Trice helped their national teams to crucial FIBA World Cup qualifying wins.

With the qualification process reaching its second stage, success over the past week was crucial for both Turkey and the USA’s hopes of qualifying for the World Cup in China next summer, and Ilyasova and Trice certainly played their part in ensuring that came to pass.

Having played a variety of warm-up games and gone through mini-camps ahead of the qualifying games, Ilyasova and Trice both played on Friday and Monday in the all-important contests.

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For Turkey, the first of those two games took place at home against Montenegro in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Friday.

Ilyasova took his regular place as a starter, and in 19 minutes of action he produced an excellent performance that helped to guide Turkey to a hard-fought 79-69 victory.

On 6-of-10 shooting from the field and 2-of-5 shooting from three-point range, Ilyasova contributed 17 points, while also chipping in with eight rebounds, three assists and a steal.

Next up for Turkey was a trip to Ljubljana to face Slovenia, the EuroBasket champions from 12 months ago. Lacking the star power of Luka Doncic and Goran Dragic, the Slovenians were nowhere near as formidable as they were in the competition, but still remained a highly organized team who demanded the best their Turkish counterparts had to offer.

Once again, Ilyasova started the game, although on this occasion his shooting was nowhere near as efficient as it had been on Friday night. Ilyasova played 26 minutes, coming up with important plays at big moments, and finishing with 14 points on 4-of-14 from the field, a barren 0-of-5 from deep, and also adding in six rebounds, two steals and one assist.

As for Trice, making up part of the USA Basketball squad comprised of young NBA players and standout G League contributors represented a golden opportunity for the man who will be battling for a spot in the NBA coming training camp.

Under Jeff Van Gundy’s guidance, Trice and Co. faced crucial games of their own, particularly with the shock loss to Mexico in the previous qualifying campaign still fresh in the collective memory.

Much like Turkey, the USA also started their pivotal few days with a home game, hosting Uruguay at Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas on Friday.

Trice wasn’t fortunate enough to earn a starter’s spot, but in what turned out to be a 114-57 blowout victory, he was eventually afforded plenty of opportunity to leave his mark on the game. Trice played just under 22 minutes, dictated the team’s play on the offensive end, and came away with nine points, seven assists, two steals and a rebound, while shooting 3-of-7 from the field and 2-of-4 from deep.

Moving on with one win in the bag, USA then traveled to Panama City to play Panama on Monday night. Although Van Gundy’s team could not necessarily replicate the 57-point winning margin from their previous outing, another dominant win arrived as they prevailed 78-48.

Logging close to 22 minutes once again, Trice played his part in the US effort by adding eight points, two rebounds and two assists, on 3-of-6 shooting from the field and 1-of-3 from three-point range.

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With a successful couple of weeks for both now behind them, focus now turns to training camp and preseason with the Bucks for Ilyasova and Trice, and the season beyond that with the Bucks (and likely, the Herd in Trice’s case).

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