FYROM looking for Cinderella date to London

If the Cinderella shoe fits, FYROM is looking to wear it to the 2012 London Olympics. FYROM enter the Olympic Qualifying Tournament as one of the biggest underdogs. But it wasn't all much different at EuroBasket 2011, where they pulled off the huge shocker by knocking off hosts Lithuania in the quarter-finals to remain alive for the Summer Games.

The main reason FYROM still have a chance for London is the same reason the Balkan side took a best-ever fourth place at EuroBasket last summer: namely Bo McCalebb doing his best impression of the Little Engine That Could.

The diminutive McCalebb willed his team to victories over Croatia, Greece, Finland, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia and Slovenia before fending off a number of nagging aches and pains in orchestrating the defeat of Lithuania - complete with giving the ball up to a teammate with a better shot for the game-winner by Vlado Ilievski.

The FYROM ride was not without a tremendous team showing. While McCalebb led the team in scoring, assists and steals and was named to the All-Tournament Team, the naturalized American could not have done it without equally outstanding performances by his teammates - predominantly Pero Antic, Ilievski, Predrag Samardziski and Vojdan Stojanovski.

Antic was a force in the blocks for FYROM with three double-doubles but he also flashed an important stroke from long range which brought his defender outside to open space for McCalebb's tenacious drives.

After a subpar first round, Ilievski picked up his game more and more over the course of the tournament and helped take away some of the scoring burden from McCalebb.

Samardziski was a crucial factor for FYROM in the paint, especially in grabbing offensive rebounds. The 25-year-old became all the more important for head coach Marin Dokuzovski's team when Todor Gecevski went out injured.

Stojanovski meanwhile averaged only 7.7 points at EuroBasket 2011, but he played a huge role in FYROM's run to the semis, shooting 40 percent from three-point range, including hitting all five triples taken in the win over Lithuania.

The fourth place finish resulted in McCalebb and his teammates becoming national heroes back in their homeland with more than 100,000 people coming out to welcome them at their return.

Coach Dokuzovski will have the same group of Lions available in Venezuela for the hopeful run to London. While the trio of McCalebb, Ilievski and Antic is strong enough to lead any team to the promised land, it is a lack of depth that will hurt FYROM.

Another factor in Venezuela will that FYROM will not be surprising anybody. Very few people truly believed in the Lions' run in Lithuania, which gave them an ease with which to play. Dokuzovski's team will not have that benefit this summer.

And while Dokuzovski's side will be helped by the return of Gecevski, it will take another herculean effort by McCalebb if the Cinderella team FYROM hope to be dancing in London.