Houston Rockets center Alperen Şengün has put together a strong EuroBasket 2025 campaign for the Türkiye national basketball team.
Türkiye finished top of Group A in the competition, going undefeated against the likes of Serbia (which possesses one of the best players in the world on its roster in the Denver Nuggets' Nikola Jokić), Latvia, Portugal, Estonia and the Czech Republic. Türkiye has since defeated Sweden in the competition's round of 16, with Şengün leading the way with 22.0 points, 10.7 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game across the team's six contests thus far.
Şengün has played well across all these games, but he saved his best performance for Türkiye's quarterfinals matchup against Poland.
Şengün becomes youngest player in EuroBasket history to record triple-double
Türkiye became the first team to clinch a spot in the tournament's semifinals after a 91-77 win over Poland at the Arena Riga in Riga, Latvia, on Friday.
Şengün was excellent in the contest, recording a triple-double within 25 minutes. He finished with 19 points (on 6-14 shooting), 12 rebounds and 10 assists; in doing so, he, at 23 years of age, became the youngest player in EuroBasket history to log a triple-double.
Prior to Şengün, only four players had recorded triple-doubles in EuroBasket since blocks became an officially calculated statistic in 1995. The most recent triple-double occurrence took place earlier in this summer's tournament, when Luka Dončić, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar, logged 26 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists in Slovenia's 86-69 win over Belgium on Aug. 31.
Mateusz Ponitka (for Poland in 2022), Andrei Mandache (for Romania in 2017) and Toni Kukoč (for Croatia in 1995) are the other three players to have accomplished the feat.
Şengün and Türkiye will be looking to keep their EuroBasket campaign alive when they face off against the winner of Lithuania and Greece, a team that features Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo on its squad, on Friday.