FIBA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS - GROUP STAGE ROUND UP
The FIBA World championships - other than the Olympic competition it's the biggest event in international basketball. It may still not get taken seriously by hardcore NBA fans but let's face it, a lot of familiar names are still there so let's give the competition it deserves. Despite not doing enough to technically qualify from the competition via Eurobasket 2009, Great Britain were hoping for and were one of eight teams being considered by FIBA for a wildcard into the tournament. However there were only four wildcards available and GB missed out. Still, the show went on and so 24 teams gathered in Turkey. 4 groups of six with the top four teams going into the knockout stages.
Group A took place in Kayseri and featured Serbia, Argentina, Australia, Angola, Germany and Jordan. This group looked anything but straightforward but it was the Serbs who turned out to be the most effective at taking care of business. They started out by deepfrying Angola 94-44 and crucially beat the Argies 84-82. They may have slipped up against Germany but a 4-1 record plusthat win over the Argies allowed them to top the group led by Dusko Savanovic who averaged 12.6 points per game. The Argies finished 2nd(also 4-1), the Aussies 3rd on 3-2 and Angola 4th on 2-3. The Germans surprisingly got an early flight home having finished 2-3 themselves but lost 92-88 to Angola(ironically - Germany were one of the European teams picked ahead of GB to a wildcard spot). Jordan brought up the rear on 0-5.
Group B took place in Istanbul and involved the USA, Slovenia, Brazil, Croatia, Iran and Tunisia. The team to watch here was clearly the US, as always loaded with familiar names from the NBA. Having said that the Olympic champions didn't take out the strongest squad I could imagine but still, they blew most of their opponents to pieces(including our old Warsaw allies Slovenia 99-77) on their way to a 5-0 record. Clearly it'll take better sides than these to slow the Yanks down. Kevin Durant(aka "The Durantula" according to one US friend) is the biggest name on the US roster and he averaged 17.8 points per game. Slovenia are still standing and went through in 2nd with a 4-1 record. Also through are Brazil in 3rd on 3-2 and Croatia in 4th on 2-3. Iran and Tunisia got booted with 1-4 and 0-5 records respectively.
Group C took place in Ankara and involved Greece, China, Turkey, Russia, Puerto Rico and the Ivory Coast. This didn't look like the easiest group to predict. As it was, the Turks took advantage of the tournament being on home turf and posted solid wins against all their opponents - which was enough for the Greeks(who the Turks saw off 76-65) to claim that the whole thing was fixed! Still, you can't argue with 5-0 and they were led by Ersan Illasova on 16.5 points per game though he didn't play against China. The Russians were the best of the rest on 4-1. The Greeks lived to fight another day on 3-2. China could only come up with a 1-4 but scrape into the knockout stages ahead of Puerto Rico and the Ivory Coast on "goal differential"(if you want to get to the bottom of that one, knock yourself out!).
Group D took place in Izmir and involved Spain, Canada, Lithuania, France, New Zealand and Lebanon. Well you'd have though Spain would have run this show but the Lithuanians had other ideas and they mugged the European champions to the tune of 76-73. That win was enough to give them a 3-0 record and that went on to become a 5-0 record and given that they were one of Europe's wildcards, that was a bit of an eyebrow raiser. The Baltic side were lead by Linus Klieza with 17.4 points per game. Like in Warsaw, Spain had a bumpy ride but survived with a 3-2 record alongside New Zealand and France and it needed a +40 game points difference advantage over the Kiwis and a +64 points difference advantage over the French to give them 2nd. NZ took 3rd thanks to a +24 game points advantage over the French who had to settle for 4th. Canada? Well you'd have thought they'd be competitive but no. 0-5 and rock bottom. Even Lebanon beat them on the way to a 1-4 record.
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