Miroslav Pecarski

Miroslav Pecarski (; born 21 March 1967) is a Serbian former professional basketball player. He played professionally for Partizan, Aris, Panathinaikos, Panionios, Pallacanestro Cantù, Cholet and Cabitel Gijón.

Early career and college in the U.S. Following a growth spurt at age thirteen, teenage Pecarski began pursuing basketball in his hometown Kikinda.

The Red Foxes had a successful 1985–86 season, making the 64-team NCAA tournament for the first time in team's history. However, they went out at the very first hurdle in the first round of the Southeast regional bracket, losing by 15 points versus the Georgia Tech team featuring future NBA players Mark Price, John Salley, Tom Hammonds, Duane Ferrell, and Craig Neal. Pecarski averaged 10.5 points per game and 5.9 rebounds per game over the entire season.

During summer 1986, Pecarski played on the Svetislav Pešić-coached Yugoslav junior national team at the European Junior Championship in Austria.

The following season, playing under new head coach Dave Magarity, Pecarski improved his scoring average to 12.4 points per game and led the team in rebounds with 8.4 boards per game, as the Red Foxes repeated the feat of making the NCAA tournament, but were again eliminated in the first round—this time by Pittsburgh.

Season with KK Partizan Following making the Svetislav Pešić-coached gold medal-winning Yugoslavia under-19 team at the FIBA Under-19 World Championship during summer 1987 in Bormio, Pecarski opted not to play for the Red Foxes in the 1987–88 season, choosing to explore his options in Europe by going back to Yugoslavia and signing a stipend-based contract with reigning Yugoslav League champions KK Partizan in hopes of giving himself a better shot at making the Yugoslavia roster for the 1988 Olympics. Pecarski's other considerations for transferring to Partizan included the fact that the club's vice-president, Yugoslav basketball legend Dragan Kićanović, personally recruited and pursued the youngster.

Coached by Duško Vujošević, twenty-year-old Pecarski was mostly deployed at center as backup for nineteen-year-old Vlade Divac while the previous season's backup center Milenko Savović went away to serve his mandatory Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) service. The two young bigs, Divac and Pecarski, had already known each other well, having just spent most of the summer 1987 together with the Yugoslavia under-19 team. Other Partizan teammates that the newcomer Pecarski had already known well from his previous Yugoslavia youth national team participations were twenty-year-old Saša Đorđević and twenty-one-year-olds Žarko Paspalj and Ivo Nakić. Pecarski immediately became a crowd favourite for his spectacular behind-the-back dunks. Numerous scuffles occurred towards the end of the contest—involving Jugoplastika's Toni Kukoč and Partizan's Nakić getting ejecting in the 29th minute as well as, later on, Partizan's head coach Vujošević, small forward Grbović, and even club vice-president Kićanović receiving technicals after being incensed by the decisions of the two referees Zdravko Kurilić (from Tuzla) and Izstok Rems (from Ljubljana)—as the proceedings nearly degenerated into an all out brawl. After participating in the successful qualifying tournament in the Netherlands in July 1988 that saw Yugoslavia clinch a spot at the Seoul Olympics, Pecarski ended up getting cut from the national team by head coach Dušan Ivković who decided to take Cibona center Franjo Arapović to the Olympics as the fourth big on the squad, behind Divac, Rađa, and Stojko Vranković.

Return to KK Partizan for the 1989 Yugoslav league finals After completing the 1988-89 season with Marist—in anticipation of the NBA draft where he had been set to be picked according to most projections (including Sports Illustrated's)—Pecarski came back to KK Partizan, re-joining them in April 1989 ahead of the Yugoslav League playoffs final series versus Jugoplastika. Returning to the club whose roster more-or-less stayed intact compared to the squad he had left the previous summer; the only difference being Goran Grbović replaced with young Predrag Danilović at small forward. A re-match of the previous season's Yugoslav League playoff finals, Partizan (having a home court advantage this time) ended up getting swept 0-3 in the best-of-five series after losing game one at home 73-74 then leaving the court before the end of game two in Split with Jugopplastika up 75-70. Game three was administratively awarded to Jugoplastika by the Yugoslav Basketball Federation (KSJ) as punishment for Partizan walking off the court in game two.

Professional career KK Partizan After not getting drafted and also seeing his subsequent attempts at joining the Indiana Pacers as an undrafted player not come to fruition, Pecarski stayed with Partizan for the following 1989-90 season.

His son Marko (born 2000) is also a basketball player.

Pecarski and Slaviša Koprivica played together on the Yugoslavia national under-19 basketball team, winning gold at the 1987 FIBA Under-19 World Championship. Thirty years later, their sons Marko Pecarski and Balša Koprivica, respectively, played together on the Serbia national under-18 basketball team, winning gold at the 2017 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship.