With a quite respectable history over the past 20 years – particularly in the FIBA EuroBasket tournament – Serbia has earned a reputation as one of The Continent’s great basketball powers. A little concern may be justified, then, at Team Serbia’s relatively disappointing eighth-place finish in this year’s European national-team tourney; indeed, at least one news source sees Serbia’s early bouncing as a symptom of greater illnesses affecting the team’s national program.
The English-language version of the Serbia-based Blic online ran a piece on Monday which sought answers under the headline “Basketball stifled by financial troubles and busy calendar.” Writer Tatjana Dragojevic investigated some of the woes she (and others) see as dogging Serbia hoops; today BallinEurope takes a closer look at some points of speculation.
Sure, 
All right, so who had FYR Macedonia winning that game? 
After an incredible 13th year with Team Germany came to an end with its defeat at the hands of Lithuania yesterday, Dirk Nowitzki may be contemplating retirement – in fact, the Germany-based Sport 1 believes it’s a done deal.
With not nearly enough time spent in Lithuania, BallinEurope doesn’t wish to make any generalizations regarding the national character vis-à-vis tendency to conspiracy theory. Having been based in Central Eastern Europe for plus-10 years now, however, BiE knows how it goes, with “it” here representing “management of professional sport clubs well above and beyond normal, decent parameters of corruption.” 
With just two days (and one game per team) remaining in 2011 EuroBasket round two, BallinEurope takes a brief look at some issues and trends going down in the tournament – plus links and YouTubes, of course. Read on for quips, quotes and clips.
With one game left to play for the teams of Group E and two for Group F in the 2011 FIBA EuroBasket tournament, BallinEurope takes a brief look at some of the mathematical possibilities for advancement into the knockout stage.
1. France (2-0) – Les Bleus had their sights on nothing less than taking this thing when the tournament began and pretty much brought an all-star game to do so (luckily for them, La Republique could foot the bill for insurance on five locked out NBA players). With Tony Parker going for 23.2 points per game through five – second-high in the first round after Luol Deng, who was forced to do it all for the thin British squad – and Joakim Noah grabbing 7.8 rebounds per, these guys have proven to be the class of EuroBasket thus far, bringing a big one-game advantage into Group E.
2. Russia (2-0) – In nipping Slovenia in the final game, 65-64, Russia capped the first round of play with the fewest points allowed in the tournament so far at 64.2 points per game – albeit against perhaps the tournament’s weakest group. No matter: David Blatt’s outstanding defensive game plans combined with speedier play and some great individual performances on offense (Vitaly Fridzhon leads all players at 12-of-18 three-point shooting to fight for the unofficial tournament deadshot award with France’s Mickael Gelabale and Serbia’s Marko Keselj; Andrei Kirilenko’s putting in 16.4 ppg) make Russia one of the scariest teams remaining – particularly if they can show the clutch play as against Slovenia.
