Dimitrios Itoudis got more than a little animated on Monday.
Itoudis, the head coach of Greece’s national basketball team, went viral for a vulgar rant towards his team during their FIBA World Cup game against the United States. It was a timeout in the second quarter when Itoudis began lighting into guard Ioannis Papapetrou. Itoudis was apparently displeased with Papapetrou’s ball-handling and unleashed some impressively eloquent profanities in English, eventually turning his rant on the entire team.
You can watch the video here (but obviously look out for the bad language).
Greece was only trailing 27-22 at the time, but Team USA pulled away in short order. They went on to win in a 109-81 rout.
Itoudis’ side has actually been otherwise impressive in the World Cup, topping Jordan 92-71 in their group stage opener over the weekend. That is despite Giannis Antetokounmpo not participating in this year’s tournament (though Antetokounmpo’s brother Thanasis and ex-NBA players Georgios Papagiannis and Kostas Papanikolaou are on the Greece roster).
That smoke-from-the-ears rant by Itoudis definitely stole the show during Monday’s game though. Usually, we only see that kind of passion at the high school level.
