Nikola Vucevic Awarded with Gold Plaque at the University of Montenegro
A famous NBA ace and first star of Orlando, basketball player Nikola Vucevic, today has been awarded a golden plaque for extraordinary sport results at international level and promotion of Montenegrin sport, in the Rectorate of the University of Montenegro.
Globally famous basketball player was awarded the golden plaque by Dusko Bjelica, PhD, and Stevo Popovic, PhD, editors of journal that introduced this award.
This is about the only Montenegrin Science Journal in the field of sport indexed in two most prestigious data bases Web of Science and Scopus - journal "Montenegrin Journal of Sports Science and Medicine."
Dusko Bjelica, PhD, in terms of justification of the award looked back on the sport path of a celebrated ace, Nikola Vucevic, who went to the USA from high school where he played for Stone Ridge Prep in Simi Valley (California) being the most dominant player in this competition.
‘He was a captain, best shooter and jumper of his school. Afterwards he played in the University of South California for three years. In final year of college his average performance was 17 points and 10 jumps in one match’, Bjelica said.
Vucevic’s career in NBA league, continued Bjelica, started in 2011 when he was selected as 16th pick of NBA draft by Philadelphia Seventy Sixers, signing the contract for them, while in lockout time he played for Buducnost.
‘In his first season he played 51 games, out of which 15 as a starter where his average was 5.5 points and 4.8 jumps. In 2012, he started playing for Orlando Magic, the team he has still been playing for. In the same year, Vucevic had 29 jumps in the match against Miami Heat, hence setting the club record. This year, 2019, Vucevic has been selected for All Star Game, for the first time in his career, but we hope not for the last one’, Bjelica said.
He wished future success to basketball player Vucevic who defends colors of Montenegro this year, as a national team player in Mundo Basket, China. With Montenegrin basketball national team he played in European Championship in Lithuania 2011, Slovenia 2013 and 2017 in Turkey, Finland, Israel and Romania.
A famous basketball player expressed gratitude for the award he received today and he said that Montenegro, even though a small country has a great number of successful athletes, not only in Montenegro but also abroad.
‘I think that we as athletes, though sport have a chance to promote true values showing young people the right way for future. We all make efforts to do so in a best possible way’, Vucevic said.
He added that he thinks that through this journal the Faculty for Sport and Physical Education of the University of Montenegro is doing a great thing of promoting values significant for young people and their future.
Editor Stevo Popovic presented the journal that established this award and welcomed today’s and previous laureate of awards presented on today’s ceremony.
‘Journal Montenegrin Journal of Sports Science and Medicine is one of leading journals, not only in Montenegro, but wider. We wanted to promote achievements of our athletes, therefore Nikola Vucevic has been selected for the fifth time who is currently best athlete of Montenegro’, Popovic said.
He added that publishers of this Journal are the Faculty for Sport and Physical Education of the University of Montenegro and Montenegrin Sport Academy and also since 2012 the Journal has had 14 editions, with total 95 papers, by authors from 34 states, from all continents, and mostly from Croatia (17), Turkey (15) and Portugal (11). Relation between applied papers and accepted papers for this journal was 11% in 2017/2018.
The journal has, Popovic underlined, a high international visibility, since it is present in 14 index bases and string of world repositories, among which Web of Science and Scopus are distinguished.
Following laureates of previous awards participated in the award ceremony: handball player Ana Milacic, student of the Faculty for Sport and Physical Education, who won championship of Greece and Greece Cup with Greek club AEK and Mario Hodzic a vice-champion of Europe in karate.
Winners of golden plaque, next to the abovementioned, are also basketball player Bojan Dubljevic, Montenegrin national team player who with his team ‘Valencia’ from Spain won Euro Cup and a famous Montenegrin judo player and a former vice-champion of the world Srdjan Mrvaljevic.
https://www.ucg.ac.me/objava.php?blog_id=1259&objava_id=49491
https://www.cdm.me/sport/kosarka/nikoli-vucevicu-urucena-zlatna-plaketa-na-univerzitetu-crne-gore/