Elias Harris and his German teammates will either win today against Croatia or we will be seeing him on campus very soon at Gonzaga.

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Before the 2009 Eurobasket tournament began, most fans of the German national team would have told you that today, in all likelihood, would be the last game their team would play in Poland.  Germany was bringing a very young and inexperienced team to the world's stage at Eurobasket but that has proved to be quite effective thus far.  The German team has taken their lumps but they have put themselves in a win or go home position that will really test the moxy of the young Germans.  Today at Noon Pacific time on ESPN360.com, they will take on Croatia for what will be the eighth and final spot of the Eurobasket Tournament which will shift over to Katowice, Poland for knockout play.

This is a very interesting game because Croatia has been regarding as one of the real up and comers on the international landscape but have failed to live up to their expectations in Poland.  Germany, on the other hand, has played above expectations throughout this event and have really been one or two plays away from winning each game they have competed in.  Their average loss deficit in this tournament is around seven points and they stunned one of the better teams in the competition when they defeated the Russians.  Only one of these two teams from Group E will advance to the quarterfinals of the Eurobasket and obviously we will be quite biased towards the German side.

Elias Harris clocked his least amount of minutes in Germany's most recent loss to FYR of Macedonia.  The twenty-year old only played six minutes in the contest, didn't attempt a shot, and pulled down one rebound.  Needless to say, we'd love to see Elias continue to make an impact on the German team as he has really been one of the young, bright spots for this team.  The game was not televised on an outlet where we would see it so it is hard to say if maybe some small injury or match up issue relegated Elias to the bench but we have seen no mention of either.  He has fit extremely well into his role as he is not expected to star for the German national team quite yet.  His current averages for the tournament are 14 minutes per game, 43 percent from the field, and about three rebounds per contest.