Elvir Ovčina

Elvir Ovčina
Player information
birthday	July 16, 1976
place of birth	Sarajevo, SFR Yugoslavia
size	212 cm
position	center
college	Syracuse
Clubs as active
1995–1999 Syracuse Orangemen 1999–2000 KS Polzela KK 2000–2001 KK Pivovarna Laško 2001–2004 EWE Baskets Oldenburg 2004 Olympiakos Piraeus 2005 RheinEnergie Cologne 2005 Chimik Juschne 2005–2008 Telindus Oostende 2008–2009 KK Bosna Sarajevo 2009 KD Polzela. 2010–2013 Gießen 46ers 0 000 0 000 0 000 0 000
National team
1997-2005	Bosnia Herzegovina

Elvir Ovčina (born July 16, 1976 in Sarajevo , SR Bosnia and Herzegovina ) is a former Bosnian basketball player who played on the position of the center . Until 2019 he was an assistant trainer at EWE Baskets Oldenburg .

Career

Ovčina studied in the United States at Syracuse University in the US state of New York and played for the Orangemen called team of the university in the NCAA . In his first year as a freshman , he reached the finals with his team, where they lost that year to the superior team of the Kentucky Wildcats , which had nine future NBA players in its ranks.

After his college days he played in Europe, initially in Slovenia , before moving to the German basketball league in 2001 to the EWE Baskets Oldenburg . With his performance in Oldenburg, where he took part in the BBL All-Star Game in 2003 , he recommended himself for the Greek top club Olympiacos, which signed him in 2004. However , he was unable to assert himself on the Aegean Sea and switched back to the BBL at RheinEnergie Cologne at the turn of the year . With RheinEnergie he won the German Cup in 2005 . In the following season he was briefly in the squad of Chimik Juschne on the Ukrainian Black Sea coast , which reached the final of the FIBA EuroCup Challenge at the end of the season . At that time Ovčina had already moved to Belgium to BC Telindus in Ostend . During his three-year engagement in Ostend, he was Belgian champion twice in 2006 and 2007 and reached the cup final in 2008. In the 2008/09 season he played in his hometown of Sarajevo at KK Bosna and was runner-up and cup winner in Bosnia and Herzegovina with his team . The 2009/10 season he started again in Polzela in Slovenia, before he dissolved his contract in January 2010 and moved back to the BBL to the relegation-threatened club in Giessen . There he received another three-year contract in the summer of 2010. He should also be more involved in the youth work of the association. After Gießen's relegation to ProA after the 2012/13 season, his contract with him was not extended.

A personal highlight of his career was a rare triple-double in the ULEB Cup 2007 in Ostend's game against Red Star Belgrade . With the Bosnian-Herzegovinian national team Ovčina took part in the European Championships in 1997 , 1999 , 2001 , 2003 and 2005 , where he was only used for one minute in 1999.

In the summer of 2017, he joined the staff of EWE Baskets Oldenburg as an assistant coach, so he returned to a previous place of work and stayed there until 2019.

Web links

• easyCredit BBL - Elvir Ovcina - player profile on the easyCredit Basketball-Bundesliga website
• Elvir Ovcina - Overview of participation in international FIBA tournaments on archive.fiba.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ovcina and Phillips are coming. Giessen 46ers , January 12, 2010, accessed on March 14, 2015 (Medien-Info). 
2. ↑ RheinEnergie signs Elvir Ovcina. schoenen-dunk.de, December 28, 2004, accessed on January 12, 2010 (Medien-Info RheinEnergie Cologne ). 
3. ↑ Elvir Ovcina / European Championship for Men 1999. FIBA Europe , accessed on March 14, 2015 (English). 
4. ↑ http://ewe-baskets.de/news/elvir-ovcina-kehrt-zurueck-an-die-hunte.html
5. ↑ https://www.schoenen-dunk.de/news_a102515_EWE-Baskets-Oldenburg_EWE-Baskets-ab-neuer-Saison-ohne-Ovcina.htm