Zdenko Babić (born c. 1960
) is a retired
Croatia
Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...
n basketball player. He is best known for scoring 144 points in a single game, a record in
FIBA
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French language, French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. FIBA defines the rules of basketball, specifies the Basketball equipment ...
-sanctioned competition.
On 10 October 1985, Babić scored 144 points playing for
KK Zadar
Košarkaški klub Zadar (), commonly referred to as KK Zadar or simply Zadar, is a men's professional basketball Sports club, club based in Zadar, Croatia. The club is a founding member and shareholder of the ABA League JTD, Adriatic Basketball A ...
in a game of the
1985–86 Korać Cup Korać is a surname. Notable persons with that name include:
* Dušan Korać (disambiguation), multiple people
* Milorad Korać (born 1969), Serbian football player and manager
* Radivoj Korać (1938–1969), Serbian basketball player
* Vitomir ...
against
APOEL B.C. of
Cyprus
Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...
.
The first game of the
two-legged tie
In sports (especially association football), a two-legged tie is a contest between two teams which comprises two matches or "legs", with each team as the home team in one leg. The winning team is usually determined by aggregate score, the sum ...
between the two clubs had been won by KK Zadar with the score of 121–40.
This gave Zadar's coach
Vlade Đurović
Vlade Đurović ( sr-Cyrl, Владе Ђуровић; born 16 May 1948) is a Serbian professional basketball coach and former player.
Early life
Born in 1948 to Bosnian Serb parents Danilo Đurović from Sokolac and Mileva Cerović from Rogatica ...
an idea of attempting to surpass the then-recent
Yugoslav First League
The Yugoslav First League ( Bosnian: Prva savezna liga u fudbalu, sr-Cyrl-Latn, Прва савезна лига у фудбалу, Prva savezna liga u fudbalu, , , , , ) was the premier football league in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1941) ...
record of 112 points in a game, set by
Dražen Petrović
Dražen Petrović (; 22 October 1964 – 7 June 1993) was a Yugoslav and Croatian professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he initially achieved success playing professional basketball in Europe in the 1980s with Cibona and Real Madri ...
.
He proposed this idea to
Petar Popović, the club's top scorer, but he declined, and so did the other Zadar's leading players.
Babić, Zadar's
sixth man
The sixth man in basketball is a player who is not a starting lineup, starter but comes off the bench much more often than other reserves, often being the first player to be substituted in, and the first to be used against the other team's subst ...
, ultimately accepted the task of record-breaking.
When the game started, the local crowd quickly realized what was going on and enthusiastically cheered Babić on whenever he scored.
He needed only 26 minutes to reach 113 points, ending with a total of 144.
The game's final score was 192–116.
Babić won the
1985–86 Yugoslav Championship with KK Zadar. Later in his career, Babić played with KK Gradine in
Pula
Pula, also known as Pola, is the largest city in Istria County, west Croatia, and the List of cities and towns in Croatia, seventh-largest city in the country, situated at the southern tip of the Istria, Istrian peninsula in western Croatia, wi ...
and Beauregard BC, with whom he won the Swiss Championship.
See also
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Babic, Zdenko
Living people
Croatian men's basketball players
KK Zadar players
Year of birth missing (living people)