Last summer changed the basketball life of Stepan Vrubl. Firstly he decided to leave Houseri Brno and moved just a couple of blocks away in the same city, to sign with the more ambitious A Plus Brno and soon afterwards he received an unexpected call from the Czech National Team.  He owes the opportunity to a rift between Maurice Whitfield, who is based in America but has a Czech passport and has been left out of Hummel’s final squad after delaying his arrival date with the team. "We made a decision not to use Whitfield in our team in this Qualifying tournament. Our patience is over“, said coach Zdenek Hummel. And so the 30-year-old Vrubl will back-up Pavel Benes. He is the smallest player on the team (1.86 m).