Spain will have a chance at revenge Thursday when it faces France in the semifinals of Eurobasket 2015. Both won quarterfinal games Tuesday, setting up another meeting between Europe’s two most talented countries. In last year’s World Cup in Spain, France ended the host’s dreams of a gold medal with a 65-52 victory in Madrid. France lost to Serbia in the semifinals before edging Lithuania for the bronze medal. Now Spain has a chance to get even by toppling the hosts. It was
Throughout the FIBA World Cup, most of the attention was on Team USA and Spain and their anticipated matchup in the gold medal game a week from today. And while the Americans and Spaniards both stormed through their groups undefeated, so did Greece, running the table in Group B. The Greens, as they are known, won their first four games by double digits before dismissing Argentina, 79-71, to clinch the group. As the last team to defeat the United States – winning the semifinals
The group stage of the FIBA World Cup is over, with 16 of the 24 teams moving on and three of them – the United States, Spain and Greece – still unbeaten. But they cannot afford to lose now. The knockout stage begins Saturday, and it’s pretty much the same as the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Win and keep playing. Lose and go home. And being one of the last four teams is something special – in this case,
In a day where all 24 teams played in the FIBA World Cup leading up to Thursday’s frenetic first round finish, it was The Manimal who again stood out in another Team USA victory. After a closely contested first quarter, Kenneth Faried helped the Americans (4-0), once again propelled by their big men, take the second and third quarters by a combined 26 points and defeat the Dominican Republic (2-2) 106-71 to advance to 4-0 and clinch the best record in
In a highly patriotic coincidence, Team USA was off on this Labor Day Monday as they prepare for Tuesday’s match with New Zealand, the only Group C team without a win here in this FIBA World Cup. Groups A and B played on Monday with the hosts separating themselves from the pack, one big upset, one huge Freakish dunk and an emerging dark horse for the all-tournament team. Group A Serbia (2-1) outscored Iran 25-13 in the decisive third quarter and defeated Iran
The four six-team group draws for the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain were announced Monday, with the defending champion United States going into a group with 2010 silver medalist Turkey. Over the weekend, FIBA announced its four wild cards for the 24-team draw. They are Turkey, Greece, Brazil and Finland, leaving Canada and its young but tantalizing roster on the outside looking in. Canada finished sixth in the FIBA Americas Tourney over the summer, failing to secure one of the automatic
This is big news in Greece this morning, reported in gazetta.gr by my good friend and colleague Antonis Kalkavouras. Jasikevicius spent three seasons with Panathinaikos from 2007-08 to 2009-10, then split last season for Lietuvos Rytas in Lithuania and Fenerbahce Ulker in Turkey. Despite playing less than 20 minutes per game, the 35-year-old Jasikevicius was Lithuania’s third-leading scorer in EuroBasket and averaged 4.6 assists — the third-highest total in the tournament behind Milos Teodosic of Serbia and Viktor Khryapa of Russia. Lithuania finished fifth in the tournament after defeating Greece 73-69 Saturday night, and they
By Chris Sheridan KAUNAS, Lithuania — The two European Olympic berths will be determined tonight in the EuroBasket semifinals as Macedonia plays Spain and Russia plays France. But first, there is a classification game between Greece and Serbia to determine which of the two teams will make it to next summer’s pre-Olympic qualifier (a.k.a. the FIBA second-chance tournament). Click here to see who is in that field so far. The last time the Serbs and the Greeks met, Nenad Krstic ended up spending the