September 22, 2008
There we go: We know now all the Eurobasket 2009 participants except one, and the Euroleague tipoff is only one month away.
- So France and Italy have to go through an additional qualifying round next summer in order to qualify for Eurobasket 2009. In the tournament, they will face Bosnia-Herzegovina, Portugal, Finland and Belgium. Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine and Estonia will play for the relegation in Division B.
- Talking of Division B, there are still three teams that remain unbeaten and have the best chances to move up to Division A: Belarus, Montenegro and Sweden. The competition will resume in summer 2009.
- The first major European League, the German Bundesliga, started this weekend. You can still join our Fantasy League Division and if you want to get the real feeling, watch the impressive pre-season trailer from Telekom Baskets Bonn. By the way, the league will start with three new arenas and is about to reach 2nd place in our European attendance ranking.
- ACB Classico brings us the phenomenal Sarunas Jasikevicius during the 2003 Finals with FC Barcelona, where he comes up with a monumental blocked shot to decide the game.
- The French basketball press saw some changes recently, with the end of Maxi-Basket and Basketnews and their merger into two new magazines: BasketNews weekly and MaxiBasketnews monthly. Additionally, BasketNews now also has a very informative website, though only in French.
- A shocker in the Italian League, as two teams have been excluded: Capo d’Orlando and Napoli. The Sicilian team was late in their payments while Napoli faked documents in an attempt to enter the league. Both teams will not be replaced.
- The Lliga Catalana has once again been won by DKV Joventut Badalona in beating Regal FC Barcelona 95-83 behind 29 points from Demond Mallet.
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This post was published on September 22, 2008
