Eurobasket 2013 qualification round bullets – plus Official Fearless Predictions™

August 30, 2012

With 13 games to play tonight in the EuroBasket 2013 qualifying round, BallinEurope takes a quick look around the blogosphere regarding a few subplots, storylines and players to watch. We’ll do this in the time-honored tradition of the ESPN TrueHoop Network, i.e. bullet-style.

● Some in the Spurs Nation were enthused with Davis Bertans’ play for Team Latvia against Romania and Adam Hanga for Hungary generally.

● Team Israel’s Yogev Ohayon is playing like he did in high school…

● …while Guy Pnini “defended his performance” in the first three games by nailing a clutch three in his side’s upset of Serbia, though the woeful shooting continued with a 1-of-5 line.

● After Jonas Jerebko, Detroit Pistons fans will also want to keep an eye out for Slava Kravtsov, described as “dominant” for Team Ukraine against Hungary – after all, team executives are.

● Speaking of Jerebko, *still* no word on whether he’ll be suiting up for tonight’s home game against Bulgaria, but Team Sweden head coach Bradley Dean asserts that “we have no excuses and we don’t want any.”

● Don’t look now, but Estonia’s no. 2 in their group – while Bosnia & Herzegovina and Georgia are knotted up atop Group D.

● By Serbian media assessment, the national team crashed and burned against Israel early and not even insane defense could save them. And is there a tiny undercurrent of criticism of Dusan Ivkovic underlying the cited Blic piece? Just a bit?

● With the second round in sight, Team Italy’s doctors will have a look at Nicholas Melli as a possible addition.

● And finally, The Official BallinEurope Fearless Predictions™, as provided by BallinEurope’s man in the UK, Sam Chadwick. Sam likes Montenegro, Serbia, Germany, Croatia, Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Finland, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic and certainly the surprise of the qualifiers already, Azerbaijan. On the bubble now but going through will be Estonia, Poland and Hungary, when “it all coming down to the Sweden-Bulgaria game” tonight. Says Sam: “I think Sweden will lose tonight if Jerebko is out.”

Maybe so, but they’ll have no excuses…

Aug 30, 2012ballineurope

This post was published on August 30, 2012

Comments: 15

Kyle
12 years ago
The prospect of Turkey not even qualifying for Eurobasket (while very real) would still surprise me.

Also not sold on Azerbaijan defeating Bulgaria on the road, or beating Sweden if Jonas returns by then. Otherwise hard to argue with the picks.
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- Biscayne
  12 years ago
  Without their core players Turkey seems like a regular team. Hedo, Ersan and Omer Asik is desperately needed while Kerem Tunceri, Omer Onan and Engin Atsurs places are not filled. If Turkey is going to qualify for this tournament Emir Preldzic, Semih Erden and Kerem Gonlum got to step up their games.
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Gabe
12 years ago
How can Turkey not even qualify for Eurobasket?! Are there no wild cards? I would assume that if Turkey doesn’t qualify for the World Cup they would be given a wild card. I mean they were the runner’s up in the last world championship.
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John
12 years ago
How come Italy didn’t qualify before?

Because they had HORRIBLE ball hogs and chickers that never play defense and NEVER EVER pass the ball (Belinelli and Bargnani).

How come Turkey would not qualify?

Because they have players with EXTREMELY low basketball I.Q.

How come Serbia is struggling the last 2 summers?

Because they have many players with a rep for being incredibly lazy and for being guys that like to party all night long.

How come Greece didn’t qualify for the Olympics?

Because they had no time to rest, no time to prepare for the tournament, because their coach was not even with the team until the tournament started, because the refs screwed, them etc.

How come USA could not win in 2002, 2004, 2006?

Because they had problems like overconfidence, young players, coaches that didn’t make a good game plan, etc.

It happens. The teams don’t on paper, they win on the various factors that happen.

Things like motivation, tiredness, luck, preparation, ref influence, etc.

I mean how did CSKA (with a 44 million euro budget) lost to Olympiacos (with a 21 million euro budget) last year?

How do the Yankees not win the world series every year? How did the Knicks suck so bad, despite having the biggest budget in the NBA?

It seems like someone is very new to sports.
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John
12 years ago
Gabe, get with the news please. FIBA no longer gives out “wild cards”. That practice was eliminated, after numerous national federations complained about it.
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Kyle
12 years ago
They eliminated wild cards? That’s news to me, but if it is true I’m happy about it.

Still even if the wild cards do still exist, FIBA has a rule that you have to make the continental championships to receive one. I remember this being brought up when Italy didn’t make Eurobasket in 2009.
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Lauri
12 years ago
Estonia is in good spot despite having to play without injured Rain Veideman, who was one the main scorers last summer. Also we don´t have Joosep Toome (207cm) So our frontcourt is pretty small with Janar Talts (2.04m, Cimberio) and Kristjan Kangur (2.01m Siena ). But other guys have stepped up. Siim-Sander Vene (2.03m 1990) has really been playing good basketball. Averaging 13,2pts and 6,7rebs. Shooting 52€ from 2pt line and 38€ from 3pt line.
He is good prospect and i im shure there will be some bigger clubs interested of him. He is actually Lithuanin product. Went there, where he was 15. Studied in Sabonis academy. HE still has one year on his contract with Zalgiris. He probably will be loaned out.
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Zarko
12 years ago
Yes wildcards were eliminated. It made no sense to have them anyway.
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Gabe
12 years ago
Wow it will be really amazing if the world champion silver medalists don’t even make the world cup. I mean this isn’t the Olympics with only 12 teams, this is 24 teams!
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- Phileus
  12 years ago
  Turkey had a Cinderella run in 2010. They’re not a horrible team, but certainly weaker than their home court advantage WC silver medal suggests. Add the fact that Ilyasova, Asik, Kanter, and even Turkoglu are all no-shows and it’s not so surprising that they’re having a hard time in a group with two other competitive teams :
  
  Turkey should try to join FIBA Asia instead 😛
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  - Gabe
    12 years ago
    Turkey was 6th place in 2006 so it’s not like that silver medal was out of the blue..
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Lakers
12 years ago
EuroBasket is really hard to qualify for. Just ask Italy, that missed it with their “NBA stars”. This isn’t like FIBA Americas where you just cake walk into qualification.

If you don’t bring a good team, you will probably not qualify.

Between this and how hard the actual EuroBasket is (way harder than crap like the Olympics) it really shows how badly they need to change how many places they give out at the Olympics.

It’s ridiculously hard to European team to qualify, while good teams from every other region just have a cake walk to the Olympics.
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- Gabe
  12 years ago
  Yes Eurobasket is so much harder than the Olympics, that’s why FYR of Macedonia was 4th place in Eurobasket and couldn’t even qualify for the Olympics. Or France won silver in Eurobasket and was 6th in the Olympics. In fact every single European team that was able to qualify for the Olympics did worse in the Olympics than they did in Eurobasket. Russia won a bronze in both events but had a 10-1 record in Eurobasket and a 6-2 record in the Olympics. Great Britain actually placed better in the Olympics (since they placed 13th in Eurobasket just their automatically qualifying for the Olympics with only 12 teams would mean a better placement) but their record in the Olympics (1-4) was worse than their record in Eurobasket (2-3). So yes EVERY SINGLE EUROPEAN TEAM DID WORSE IN THE OLYMPICS THAN IN EUROBASKET yet “actual Eurobasket is way harder than crap like the Olympics” lol But this delusional belief is not such a big deal, we have the same type of people in the US who are given facts time and time again and just ignore them…we call them Republicans. lol
  
  As for good teams from every other region just having a cake walk to the Olympics I don’t remember seeing Angola or Puerto Rico in London?
  
  What I do agree with this poster on is Asia and Oceania, meaning China and Australia getting to be in every Olympics. Asia is so weak it is like junior varsity and Oceania only has two countries with Australia being a step above New Zealand. I think that Oceania and East Asia should be combined into one zone and Africa and the Middle East into another, giving the extra slot to Europe or a qualifier. That way at least Australia and China will have to duke it out for the Olympic spot every 4 years. But since this will never happen I too think the Olympics should expand.
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Jack
12 years ago
This Gabe is one of the dumbest people ever…………..
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Miguel
12 years ago
Meanwhile, the Euroleague did its yearly Turkish Airlines and Euroleague official promotion ad. The players selected every year to do this are “the biggest stars that European basketball has”.

The three players selected were, Juan Carlos Navarro, Vassilis Spanoulis, and Sofoklis Schortsanitis, with Navarro and Spanoulis getting the obvious top billing of the 3.

Here is an article about the commercial and a pic from it.

http://www.sport-fm.gr/article/578117

So these American racists can say whatever they want about Spanoulis and Navarro. The fact of the matter is that they are 10 times bigget stars in Europe than 90% of the NBA players will ever be in the United States.

They are way more famous and bigger names in Europe than the vast majority of NBA players will ever be in the USA. And all the xenophobic and racist American NBA only fans that post here cannot stand that.
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