Everything is coming to a head as we’re finally getting a picture of Europe’s big basketball tournament. With eight teams still in the running for five spots, four of today’s FIBA EuroBasket 2013 qualifiers are potentially crucial to making up the final bracket in Slovenia: Germany at Sweden, Serbia at Estonia, Turkey at Portugal and the match of the day, Latvia at Georgia. BallinEurope takes a brief look at these games and the overall picture as the qualification tourney nears its end – bullet-style, natch, with links and YouTubes.
• The way BiE sees it, the picture looks something like the following. In/in barring epic collapse: Montenegro, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Ukraine, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Poland, Finland, Czech Republic. All but out/out: Belarus, Netherlands, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland. Why are we here: Slovakia, Iceland, Albania, Portugal, Cyprus, Luxembourg.
Latvia and Georgia each only need one win to advance to Slovenia; they play one another and finish against Romania and Netherlands, respectively – pencil both in.
This leaves eight teams vying for five spots and we already know that one will be occupied by Serbia or Israel, another by Azerbaijan (no, really) or Sweden. According to FIBA’s own scenarios, it seems that Belgium, Estonia and Bulgaria need way too many things to go their way, implying that … Turkey is an upset away from not advancing into Eurobasket 2013, possibly giving up a seat to Sweden, Israel or Azerbaijan (no, really really).
• Though Israel hosts Slovakia in qualifying game 9 tonight, at least one news source of note claims that the team’s already looking ahead to Tuesday night’s match against Serbia … going against the “we take these games one at a time” cliché, eh?
• After Mirza Teletovic and his Team Bosnia & Herzegovina topped Georgia in a thriller, the Georgia-Latvia match is now a win-and-in. Here’s to thinking that if Georgia puts 103 on the scoreboard again, they won’t lose – and Team Latvia is bringing no one of Teletovic’s dominant ilk right now.
• BiE’s team of the tournament thus far? Well, it’s gotta be Team Montenegro, right? As impressive as Italy has been, Montenegro’s eight-game run points to a more promising Eurobasket 2013 after the disappointment of ’11. Best underdog is Azerbaijan, no contest.
• Official home team of BallinEurope, Team Hungary, it seems has been all but mathematically eliminated. Sigh. Ah well, you gotta love prospective San Antonio Spur Adam Hanga’s line in the loss to Austria (freaking Austria!) 20 points on 8-of-17 shooting; four rebounds; three assists; four steals, one block and one TO. If folks in Hungary cared a wee bit more about basketball, Hanga’s profile would be exceedingly high.
• As for Turkey, two Ws and they’ll be playing in Slovenia next year after all. On the schedule are games at Portugal and versus the surprising Czech Republic, a seemingly doable task. Putting a bit of a dampener of things is Bogdan Tanjevic’s reasoning for his team’s 18-point second-half collapse against Italy: “We were under pressure, but they were not and that’s another advantage for them.” Surely the pressure won’t get to them again…?
Tags: Ádám Hanga, basketball highlights, Bogdan Tanjevic, Eurobasket 2013, FIBA, Mirza Teletovic, San Antonio Spurs, Team Azerbaijan, Team Hungary, Team Montenegro, Team Turkey, YouTube
Forza Italia!
Team USA would beat this tourney’s All-Star team by 50.
Ivkovic is using the Olympiacos system and offense with Serbia, trying to substitute Teodosic for Spanoulis and the result is a disaster.
Does he not realize that Teodosic is not Spanoulis?
Yes with Spanoulis they would lose to….Nigeria!!!!
Team USA would beat this tourney’s All-Star team by 50.
and Euroleague’s all star team would beat Team USA by 10-15 points.
hahahaha
No a Euroleague all star team would lose to Nigeria by 10-15 points. There has never been a Euroleague all-star team playing against national teams but the USA has gone three straight tournaments going undefeated. While Greece, with the Euroleague Final Four MVP lost to Nigeria. Enough said.
Greece 101 – USA 95
Enough said.
Spanoulis 22 points
Chris Paul 3 points
Enough said.
Ummm….6 years ago and Chris Paul’s rookie year.
Let’s look at more recent history,
Nigeria 80 – Greece 79
Enough said.
Spanoulis choking in crunch time
Dagunduro hitting clutch shots in crunch time
[...] Eurobasket 2013 qualification round bullets: Picture taking shape – BallinEurope [...]
While Kris Humphries has been sorting out his divorce with Kim Kardashian and picking out a new wardrobe this summer, Teletovic has been getting ready to introduce himself to the NBA family. Over the past 10 months, Teletovic has proven to be too good a shot maker not to have a quality role with the Nets. While not a freak athlete, Teletovic is deceptively quick and strong, and lineups with him at the four will be deadly in transition. On a surprisingly loaded Nets squad, Teletovic may not put up eye-popping numbers, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him end up on an All-Rookie team.
It’s finny now that it’s pretty much an open secret that Vassilis Spanoulis will play with the Toronto Raptors next year how this Gabe nut has been bashing this guy so hard with his “can’t play in the NBA” schtick.
I guess the karma factor finally came into play. How incredibly stupid is this moron Gabe going to look, same with mike after they spent years on this site claiming Spanoulis “is not good enough to play in the NBA”.
I guess those retarded trolls should have picked on a different Euroleague player to bash. They pretty much totally destroyed themselves now that Spanoulis will be returning to the NBA.