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
During one of Team USA’s exhibition games prior to the World Cup, international basketball aficionado Fran Fraschilla had a simplistic but telling observation. Fraschilla said that no team at the World Cup will have as many NBA players than Team USA. That is a big advantage. Another big advantage Team USA has it that it can afford to let down for brief stretches of games. Other teams cannot. Lithuania coach Jonas Kaslauskas had firsthand experience with that dynamic in Thursday’s semifinal. After playing
So how does it feel, Spain? How does it feel to come up woefully short of expectations? How does it feel to be embarrassed by an inexplicable loss on your home floor in front of your blindly supportive fan base? How does it feel to be relegated to classification games while visitors vie for the international championship you believed was rightfully yours? Yeah, it wasn’t supposed to go down this way. Your march through the 2014 World Cup wasn’t supposed to be
Since the beginning of the FIBA tournament, all the experts and their mothers expected Team USA to meet their match against Spain for the gold in the final game. Just one problem: Spain will no longer play for the gold after a shocking 65-52 loss to France on Wednesday. Despite a valiant effort from Pau Gasol, who had 17 points and eight rebounds, the rest of his team struggled mightily against France’s tough defense, anchored by center Rudy Gobert and his game-high 13 rebounds.
Spain was targeting another classico with Team USA. Instead, they will have to settle for classification. In one of FIBA’s bigger upsets in recent memory, host Spain lost to France, 65-52, in the quarterfinals of the World Cup on Wednesday. The Spaniards came into this World Cup looking to avenge narrow losses to the United States in the final of the 2008 Olympics and the 2012 Olympics. They believed they had the personnel to match up with the Americans – especially after Team USA
When the FIBA World Cup’s group stage ended Thursday, eight of the 24 teams went home. Four more went home Saturday, the first day of the knockout stage. One of them was Mexico, which put up little resistance in a loss to Team USA. Chris Sheridan is in Barcelona and was not overly impressed. As the games get tougher, the rotation needs to get shorter. Here’s a roundup of Saturday’s round of 16 games. BARCELONA GAMES Team USA 86, Mexico 63 In a rare mornng EST
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