PODGORICA (EuroBasket/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - American Taylor Rochestie helped take Montenegro to the EuroBasket with some terrific displays last summer in qualifying but coach Luka Pavicevic has decided to give the country's naturalized spot to point guard Tyrese Rice.

As expected, the Maccabi Tel Aviv playmaker will make the trip to Slovenia to help the Montenegrins in the 'group of death' against Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (MKD), Latvia and Lithuania.

"Rochestie and Rice are first and foremost very high quality people," Pavicevic said, "and as players they are on a high level.

"They have different qualities in relation to their quality, especially physical, and then the technical and tactical, and after analyzing the opponents in the group, after two months of preparation, I decided it was best for the team to travel to Slovenia with Rice.

"Taylor would not have been the wrong decision, but we could choose only one, and the choice fell to Rice.

"We're happy that we have Taylor and we are sorry that we can not participate with both players because they deserve to go with their attitude and quality."

Montenegro are loaded with talent and include many members of the sides that went undefeated last last summer in 10 qualifying games, including home-and-away sweeps of Serbia and Israel.

One player that wasn't with the squad last year, Orlando Magic center Nikola Vucevic, should log significant minutes in Slovenia.

"I have to commend all the players who have done the preparations, as well as those players who knew they would not be on the final list, but who selflessly gave their time and energy to the team that could form the structure of the game in the absence of players who were due to injury later joined the rest of the team," Pavicevic said.

"All players , including the two Americans (Rochestie and Rice) with Montenegrin passports had maximum motivation."

Montenegro's first game will be on 4 September against MKD.

Montenegro squad for EuroBasket: Tyrese Rice, Nikola Ivanovic, Suad Sehovic, Bojan Bakic, Aleksa Popovic, Sead Sehovic, Marko Popovic, Vladmir Dasic, Milko Bjelica, Nikola Vucevic, Blagota Sekulic and Bojan Dubljevic.

FIBA