The Greeks are out, Bo McCalebb is out, J.J. Barea and Carlos Arroyo are out, and there won’t be any Angolans to elbow around at the 2012 Olympic men’s basketball tournament. On a day of wild swings and finishes at the quarterfinals of the Olympic qualifying tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, the field of Olympic contenders was reduced to four — Russia, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria and Lithuania. Two spots will be determined in today’s semifinals, with both of those teams going into
By Chris Sheridan KAUNAS, Lithuania — Just when you thought you’ve seen it all … Well, you’ve never seen it all. That’s something you always have to keep in mind when attending a FIBA tournament. Greece defeating the United States in the semifinals of the World Championship in Japan in 2006? That was right up there, probably No. 1 in my book. Russia beating Spain in Madrid for the gold medal at EuroBasket in 2007? Yeah, that’s up there, too. Might have been the closest
By Chris Sheridan KAUNAS, Lithuania — The Lithuanian news portal delfi.lt has a crab named Lazdeika (named after a legendary ancient Lithuanian wizard) in their office in Vilnius, and this is no ordinary crab. Before each game Lithuania has played, the crab has correctly predicted the winner. So far, the crab is 8-0. Here is how the crab prediction works: Two empty shells are set up on each side of the crab’s tank (it is the same size as a small fish tank). The
By Chris Sheridan VILNIUS, Lithuania — Sergei Monia banked in a 3-point shot off an inbounds pass with 2.5 seconds remaining to give Russia a 63-61 victory over Macedonia on Monday night in the final game of Round 2 at Eurobasket. After two aborted inbounds plays — the Macedonians intentionally fouled on the first one with 2.8 seconds left, and Russia’s Alexei Shved then banged the ball off the player defending the inbounds pass and back out of bounds to avoid a 5-seconds call, Shved found Monia on the right
By Chris Sheridan VILNIUS, Lithuania — The second-leading scorer remaining at EuroBasket is an American with a Macedonian passport, a player whose home in New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, a point guard who never once got off the bench during the entire 2008 NBA summer league in Las Vegas when he was trying out for the Sacramento Kings. “He’s the best point guard in Europe right now,” said his agent, Eric Fleisher, “and the entire NBA ignored him, which was a huge