The Road of Georgian Basketball – Part X

Georgian Basketball Federation continues the project “The Road of Georgian Basketball to EuroBasket2021”. We tell you about the basketball players and coaches who played in the official matches of the Georgian national team and contributed significantly to the development of this sport.

Part X – What to do when the door is locked and the key is at home?

Nikoloz Tskitishvili had a 20-year career in the Georgian national team with the last match against Germany in February 2018. He started his foreign career in Slovenia, where he arrived with Irakli Keidia and Davit Ugrekhelidze in 1999. This time we will tell you about these three players, along with Giorgi Markoishvili and Davit Muskudiani.

Nikoloz Tskitishvili

– Levan Moseshvili called me to the national team for the first time. I still remember how happy I was. The coaches, Levan Moseshvili and Zurab Tomaradze, trusted us the youngsters, Boisa, I, and Pachulia to play in the starting five in the first qualifying round, – said Nikoloz Tskitishvili, who soon moved from Slovenia to Italy.

In 2002, he was picked by Denver Nuggets on the NBA draft and arrived in Georgia in 2004 as an NBA player. It was in 2004 that we began our move to the elite: FIBA Europe divided the teams into two divisions. Georgia was in the B division and wasn’t able to advance to A before 2009.

In 2009 we beat Sweden, Ireland, Luxembourg and Slovakia in the group, defeated Belarus in the playoffs and reached the elite. After that our team played at the European Championships four times. Nika Tskitishvili helped the team on two Eurobaskets – in 2011 and 2013…

Skita had a historic match against Macedonia at Eurobasket 2011 – he collected 20 points and 10 rebounds, he was effective especially in the last minutes, and if Bo Mccalebb had not scored two points at the last minute, we would have made a big step towards the playoffs and Tskitishvili’s performance would have been greatly appreciated.

After the Eurobasket 2013, Nika began a successful career in Asia, though she had a four-year interval in the national team. Tskitishvili was invited to the national team in 2017 by Ilias Zouros. He played four matches in the qualifying round of the World Championship and became the starting five player again.

– I became unaccustomed of playing in front of a Georgian fan, – says Nika. I played in clubs, as if I had been washed up from the national team. I have played in many clubs, they have appreciated me and I have gained respect from the fans as well. It’s really nice, but it’s different when you’re home, playing in front of a Georgian fan and feeling the love from them. Believe me, it’s a miracle.

Davit Ugrekhelidze

– Nika Tskitishvili, Irakli Keidia and I left for Slovenia together, – recalls Davit Ugrekhelidze, – got into Ljubljana’s Slovan and got into trouble on the very first day: They took us from the airport to the apartment. We put our bags, rested a bit and went to work out. Returning home, we found that the door was locked so that we had left the key inside. We were ashamed to say this to the club management. The only solution left was to climb from the window. Fortunately, Keidia left the window open. The apartment was on the second floor. We went to the backyard, raced through our neighbor’s garden, looking around – wondering if anyone sees the 2-meter-high people on the fences. Considering our height, lifting Keidia and climbing a window was an easy task.

Davit Ugrekhelidze played in the national team from 2001 till 2007. These are the years of great victory and great disappointment:

– In 2001 we beat Bulgaria and Belarus very nicely in Tbilisi. Not many expected this. We made our fans extremely happy. In 2007, it happened on the contrary, losing in Iceland is one of the most bitter memories to me. The game was almost won. Such a match could be lost once in 100 years…

Giorgi Markoishvili

Giorgi Markoishvili has become the best player of the Georgian Championship many times, won the championship, was often called in the national team, collected 10 or more points in the friendly matches, but had only one official match in the national team.

Giorgi played 9 minutes against Luxembourg and scored 8 points. He had the accuracy of shooting like his brother Manuchar, the record set in 2009 shows this clearly: in the match against Batumi Giorgi scored 75 points, which is the absolute record of Georgian championships until today.

Head of the Markoishvilis’ basketball dynasty, deserving coach Nugzar Markoishvili characterizes his son as follows:

– Giorgi was a young man with a great talent. If he had had a hard-working nature and toughness of his younger brother, a member of the national team, Manuchar, he could have played grater basketball…

Davit Mushkudiani

The fact that we defeated Bulgaria and Belarus very nicely in 2001 is already known to you. Byt we faced big problems before the repeated matches. Coach Zurab Tomaradze recalls that Vladimir Stephania had promised to play in “Yambol”, so he did not take center Davit Berdzenishvili to Bulgaria; He learned already in the airport that David Ugrekhelidze was injured. And after arriving in Yambol, they heard that Stephania couldn’t get there either, because of the injury…

Davit Mushkudiani, who had spent the previous season in Bulgaria, made his debut for the team:

– The national team went to Yambol, Bulgaria. I was a newly transfered from “Academic” to Moscow “Dinamo” then. The head coach of the Bulgarian national team, Petko Marinov, was also in charge of the training of “Academic”, he met me warmly. The local fan was kind to me throughout the match. We tried very hard, but we couldn’t beat Bulgaria that day.

Davit Mushkudiani currently works at Newton Free School in Tbilisi – he’s a head coach of the Children’s Basketball Academy.

Irakli Keidia

Gordon Herbert was the head coach of Georgia in 2005. His assistant Nugzar Kandelaki tells an interesting story:

– Before the match against Finland, Herbert put 100 euros at the center of the court at the training session and said – the one who would throw the ball from the center of the court, would get the money. We all had the right to shoot. Irakli Keidia and I went to the finals. The winner of the final would be the one who scored three-pointers with his left hand… Kedo beat me.

Like Giorgi Markoishvili, Kaidia has played one official match, but he has also competed with Dirk Nowitzki:

– I will never forget playing against Tony Parker and Dirk Nowitzki. I met with Parker, as a member of the youth team, in the European Championship. The following year Parker was already playing in “San Antonio.” Parker made an amazing impression on me, he is the greatest player I have ever played against. As for Nowitzki, I played against him at the international tournament in Germany already in the national team.