Greek coach fires with Alperen Sengun’s “disrespectful” comment on Giannis Antetocomo
Alperen Sengun made bold comments on Giannis Antetocomo following Turkey’s semi-final victory over Greece at Eurobasket 2025.
After limiting Giannis to just 12 points, the lowest scoring output in the tournament, Senn declared that the Greek star “is not a good passerby.”
This comment created fans, analysts, and immediate topics and responses closest to fans, analysts and Giannis.
Greek head coach Vassilis Spanoulis has brought the most direct rebuttal to Sengun’s rating.
Spanoris rejected the idea that Türkiye “locked up” Giannis with a good strategy. He also pointed out that Sengun is an inexperienced player.
“Senton is a very small kid talking about Giannis. Secondly, he has heard different ideas from people who don’t have ideas about basketball, from Turkish teams, from people who are locking Giannis, so he needs to know.
The coach believes that Greece’s poor performance is attributed to the struggles of the entire team, not to Turkey’s individual defensive control.
Spanoris provided a specific example of why Giannis struggled, pointing out that layups and teammates were unable to convert open looks rather than extraordinary Turkish defenses.
“We weren’t a good day. They did the same defense as Giannis. He missed alone four times in a layup. He found a teammate over six times.
“We’re going to make an incredible tournament. We put ourselves in this situation. We played a bad game in the semi-finals. They played better in that game, so we reached out to Turkiye. They make it all.”
This is not the first time Spanris has made a bold comment. He also criticized the Eurobasket 2025 umpire and compared Giannis to Luka Doncic.
Despite the semi-finals, Greece won its first Eurobasket medal since 2009, the bronze medal.
Giannis won his first international tournament medal and earned all-tournament first team honors through an average of 27.3 points, 10.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists.