Got time on this Sunday? Great to hear it! Ball in Europe has a nice handful of video clips and stories to guide your surfing with another edition of “Best of the (Basketball) Net.”
Buzzing on the interwebs this week in stories not involving a certain bunch of Washington Wizards were Euroleague, FIBA, FCB, and NBA play. We recap, you enjoy (we hope) … happy Sunday!
Is it too early to start planning your basketball viewing for late August? Nah! And after looking over the 2010 FIBA World Championship schedule released yesterday, i’m already feeling anticipation for a bunch of matches in this year’s Europe-heavy tournament.
The official BallinEurope-recommended dates and games Europe needs to mark on its collective calendar include:
• Saturday, August 28
Russia vs. Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has a reputation as a giant-killer, so here’s a basketball giant for them (although with a FIBA ranking of 10 and many trips to the podium in Americas-based tournaments lately, maybe the island is the secret giant).
Additionally, if the clichéd and tiresome “Group of Death” sobriquet must be named for this tournament, it’s Group C. Excepting China, any of the remaining five teams here (joining Russia and Puerto Rico are Cote d’Ivore, Greece, and Turkey) could advance and even go deep into the bracket, so every game counts. And this is a key one early.
Congratulations go out this morning to Germany, Russia, Lithuania and – whoa, really? – Lebanon, for their bestowal of a “wild card” bid to the 2010 FIBA World Championship by the organization’s central board.
The draw for placement into pools will be upon on Wednesday. Official FIBA press release follows.
(FIBA) — During today’s meeting of the FIBA Central Board – the highest executive body of the International Basketball Federation – the following teams were awarded wild card entries to next year’s FIBA World Championship in Turkey:
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On Monday, certainly to much pomp and fanfare, FIBA officials will announce the four “wild card” entries that will round out the 2010 World Championship field of 24. The world may indeed be watching, with basketball fans in up to 15 nations truly believing their national team will be named, but is this a serious case of overhyped ado about nothing or could we be surprised?
Aside from some actual on-court results, i.e. the given team must have played in its continental qualifying tournament (so so long Italy), FIBA officials congregating to hash this selection out will consider other aspects of the country’s national program. These include certain sporting aspects, economic aspects (read: marketing potential), and governance aspects. The detailed list may be seen here, but, again, think marketability.
The list of contenders is fairly-well agreed upon and should be mostly reflected by the FIBA rankings themselves.
(As an aside, please note that Ball in Europe in no way endorses the frankly often bizarre FIBA rankings. Seriously, Argentina above Spain *and* Team USA? Russia at no. 17, five spots below Angola? We could go on and on … in any case, we’ll work under the assumption that FIBA takes its own rankings into consideration in situations such as determining wild cards for international tournaments.)
Filling the big shoes of displaced head coach Jasmin Repesa when Croatia hits the court for the 2010 FIBA World Championship will be Josip Vrankovic. Vrankovic had served as the coach of Croatia’s “Team B” in international competition in addition to (briefly and contentiously) helming Cibona Zagreb in 2007.
As a long-time player with Team Croatia, Vrankovic was with the team in Atlanta for the 1996 World Games and played at Eurobasket 2001 in the soon-to-become familiar country of Turkey.
Though this move had been expected for nearly two weeks, the decision was only officially announced yesterday. FIBA press release follows the break.
The draw is in over at FIBA and the results are posted! We’re talking here about the pools for the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Women, drawing for which took place in Karlovy Vary at about noon today.
Group A will have Belarus, Canada, China and Australia facing off; Group B has France, Greece, Senegal and Team USA; Group C features Mali, Korea, Brazil and Spain (sure to be a couple of good contests between FIBA’s no. 4 and no. 5 overall there); and Group D holds Japan, Argentina, Russia and the Czech Republic.
According to FIBA, Alba Torrens has no fear.
In a brief profile piece over at the governing body’s official website, the 20-year-old 2009 EuroBasket Women standout is looking forward to meeting the world’s powerhouses in next year’s FIBA Worlds.
“I would like to face the USA because you always want to play a game against a team with that kind of potential,” Torrens is quoted as stating and “It would have a special significance to me to meet Australia because I have never had the opportunity to face them and they are the defending champions.”
As for Spain’s Continental rivals, says Torrens: “We are looking forward to facing the European teams and proving once again that we are at the same level as other teams.”
Torrens achieved the proverbial burst onto the world basketball scene at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with a debut performance of 18 points in 18 minutes against China on day one of the basketball tournament. Torrens was drafted by the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun this year after playing last year with Real Club Celto Indepo.
The draw for the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Women will be held today. Team Spain is currently ranked no. 5 in FIBA’s women’s program rankings. Far and away the top three are the US, Russia and Australia, though Spain is just a single point in the scoring system behind no. 4 Brazil.
Germany’s basketball fans got an unofficial boost yesterday, thanks to a column from ESPN’s Marc Stein which had Dirk Nowitzki declaring his career with Team Germany not yet over while speculating on a reunion with Chris Kaman in 2010.
The former twosome met in Saturday’s Los Angeles Clippers-Dallas Mavericks game, a matchup that was worthy of little attention outside the future implications for the German national team, particularly with the team seemingly in line for a “wild card” spot to be handed out for the 2010 FIBA World Championships.
Stein opines that Germany is in the mix for a FIBA wild card, along with Russia, Lithuania, and “Great Britain – home team for the 2012 Olympics and a fast-improving hoops nation led by Chicago’s Luol Deng” and that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has promised that “discussion about Nowitzki returning to the national team would be reopened as long as he took ‘a year off.’”
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