Nika Barič (born 2 September 1992) is a Slovenian

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player. She was selected in the second round of the 2012 WNBA draft (20th overall) by the

Minnesota Lynx The Minnesota Lynx are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis. The Lynx compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference (WNBA), Western Conference. The team won the WNBA ...

but was waived in May 2016 without ever having played for the team. She represented

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

at the

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2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, and

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

Eurobasket EuroBasket, also commonly referred to as the European Basketball Championship, is the main international basketball competition that is contested quadrennially, by the senior men's national teams that are governed by FIBA Europe, which is the E ...

which was managed by coach Damir Grgić throughout this period. In April 2023, two months before the

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tournament which was to be co-hosted by her native

, Barič was kicked off the national team over her controversial remarks in social media in which she disparaged the leadership of the

Basketball Federation of Slovenia The Basketball Federation of Slovenia () also known as KZS is the governing body of basketball in Slovenia. It was founded in 1950 as a member of the larger Yugoslav Basketball Federation (see also: Basketball in Yugoslavia). In 1992, KZS joined ...

for having retained services of Greek coach George Dikeoulakos to manage the team at the next Eurobasket and stated there was 'no need to hire foreign coaches when Slovene coaches, such as Damir Grgić were available'. A few days later, Barič followed-up with a clarification of her earlier statement saying it was not a personal attack on Dikeoulakos but rather a repeated comment (which she had previously made in October 2021) on the work of the Basketball Federation which, she thought, had been unfair to Grgić by dismissing him after he had led the team successfully at three different Eurobasket competitions.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baric, Nika 1992 births Living people Minnesota Lynx draft picks Sportspeople from Trbovlje Point guards Slovenian expatriate basketball people in Russia Slovenian women's basketball players 21st-century Slovenian sportswomen