Mirko Novosel obit

Hall of Fame coach Mirko Novosel passed away at 85

 He was not on the list.

Mirko Novosel, one of the greatest figures in the history of Yugoslavian basketball, passed away at the age of 86 Thursday (20/7). The Croatian coach was a member of both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the FIBA Hall of Fame.

A longtime head coach of the Yugoslavian national team during the 70s and 80s, Novosel led the squad to the gold medal in the 1973 and 1975 EuroBasket, the silver medal in the 1974 World Cup and the 1976 Olympic Games, along with the bronze medal in the Olympics of 1984.

In 1993, Novosel was the coach of the Croatian national team in the 1993 EuroBasket, winning the bronze medal.

On a club level, Novosel coached Cibona Zagreb towards the back-to-back EuroLeague championship titles of 1985 and 1986, along with the Saporta Cups of 1982 and 1987.

Novosel was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, as a coach, in 2007 and entered the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2010.

“Mirko, for me personally, through all that he did for Yugoslavian, Croatian and Zagreb basketball, is the greatest! And he is also responsible for my and Drazen’s arrival in Zagreb,” wrote Croatia head coach Aco Petrovic, the older brother of the late Drazen Petrovic, on Twitter. “Mirko, rest in peace.”

In basketball, as in life, Mirko Novosel never hesitated to make an immediate and lasting impression. He began his coaching career in 1966 with Lokomotiva of Zagreb in Croatia and as he quickly built that team into a contender Novosel garnered the attention of the Yugoslavian Basketball Federation. His first foray into coaching at the national level was with the Cadet and Junior teams in 1971. In 1973, after being named head coach of the national team, Novosel lead Yugoslavia to the gold medal of the European Championships, a feat he repeated in 1975. One year later, at the 1976 Olympics, Novosel led his countrymen including future Hall of Famers Kresimir Cosic and Drazen Dalipagic to a silver medal finish and followed up that performance by winning the bronze medal at the 1984 Olympic Games. Novosel was a master at getting the most from every player on the 12-man roster and his system of mixing young prospects with veteran players gave his teams stability and continuity that often translated into wins and medals.