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
Who are this year’s international men of mystery whose names will be called at the 2014 NBA draft? We already have looked at Dante Exum, who is a near lock for the top five, as well as Dario Saric and Jusuf Nurkic, a pair of bigs playing in Croatia who could be in the lottery. However, this international class goes a bit deeper, with a few established players who can play right away, plus the usual draft-and-stash candidates who could come to the league after a few years of
The quarterfinal round of EuroBasket ’13 began Wednesday. With only six available spaces for the 2014 World Cup, seven of the remaining eight teams are battling it out to make it to the Spain next year. [Read more…]
11. Petteri Kaponen, Guard, Finland, (Dallas owns draft rights) Kaponen has been moving up the food chain in European basketball since he was drafted in the first round back in 2007. Kaponen is the clear leader of the undefeated Finnish squad, pouring in 22.8 points a game to go along with 5 assists, as he prepares to take the step up to the Euroleague with the Russian giant, Khimki Moscow. He has excellent size for a point guard at 6’5”, and
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
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 — With Serbia defeating Turkey this afternoon 68-67, Dirk Nowitzki still has a chance to get his national team into the quarterfinals when Germany plays Lithuania tonight. (The games can be watched live on FIBA.com). It’ll be Nowitzki’s most important game since the NBA Finals, but his team doesn’t just need to win … they need to win by 11 points or more. That is because of the complicated FIBA tie-breaking rules, which use point differential among games between