EuroBasket 2007 thread

[Panco]

So European Basketball Championship 2007 is ready to begin..
Who, do you guys think, will win it ?
The main favourites, in my opinion, are :
1. Spain - World champions, has a lot of great players (Gasol, Navarro, Calderon, Garbajosa etc..). Keeps pretty much the same roster for some years, so they know each other really well. Has a great bench, so they can substitute each other often. Crushed Lithuania 2 times by 20+ points this summer. They're going to win it, imo.
2. Greece - European champions. A bit similar to Spain : great starting 5, fine bench. They can shot 3's and dominate the paint. Has the best guards in a whole EB, imo (Papaloukas, Zisis, Diamantidis). Keeps the same roster for some years, as well..
3. Lithuania - We finally got our main players back.. Siskauskas - former Panathinaikos player, signed with CSKA. 3rd most expensive player in Europe. Was one of the main players. Italian league MVP a year ago. He should have been Euroleague Final 4 MVP this year , he was definitely worth it, but the Final 4 was held in Greece, so Diamantidis was chosen as MVP.. We also got Kaukenas back, first time since 2001. He was 2nd in Italian league MVP competition, but became Finals MVP. A phenomenal scorer, was the main scorer in our friendly games. Really aggressive and a bit selfish. And of course, Jasikevicius. One of the best PG's in Europe. Was named as a Top 3 Point Guard in the world, before he went to NBA, where he was really unlucky. Still he has a huge impact to Lith's play. I'm sure that most of you (Europeans, I mean) know him, so there's no need to talk about.
If Macijauskas and Ilgaukas had came, we would have had our "Dream Team"
However, Lithuania did not play as good, as most of Lithuanians expected, in friendly games. I still hope, that they're going to play much better in EB.

France and Turkey may also end up really high this time.

So my guess :
Gold - Spain
Silver - Lithuania/Greece
Bronze - Lithuania/Greece


Anyway, what are your thoughts ?

[Fresh8]

I like Eurobasket as it looks like it will be really close. Apart from Spain, who will be favourites, you can't say no to any of the teams.

Spain: World Champions. Should be favourites by default. I love Navarro and Calderon together in the backcourt. And of course, they have Pau Gasol.

And the rest - not in any order...

France: Is Tony Parker still injured? France always does well in national compeititon and figure to be among the top teams at the tournament.

Serbia: They are a young team but they didn't do all too badly at the WC last year. One year older and probably each player will be wiser/better... can't count them out. Look out for Darko.

Lithuania: Getting their older players back. Panco, lots of people know the value of Sarunas! Don't worry. Siskauskas is pretty good too. I can't remember... is he the guard alongside Sarunas or one of the forwards? They were without their older and experienced players last year at WC but since they are all back this time around, Lithuania will be strong.

Greece: Reigning champions. Good team defence. Solid side and will look to protect their title.

Germany: The German tema haven't had a favourable leadup to the tourney but Dirk is confident in his side. Will be interesting to see how Dirk leads the germans. He usually defers to his team mates and tries to get his team involved... the true basketball way. However, I wanna see if he takes issues into his own hands if and when the time is right and he is needed to.

Turkey: Not too sure about them. But i will put their name up so maybe someone can tell me about them?

Russia: I have a gut feeling Russia might surprise some people.

Italy: Really young team who will either swim or sink.

Slovenia: Pera tells me they are for real. They certainly surprised people at the world championships in Japan. We shall see if they can bring that form back.

And Latvia won't do well as a team.. but look out to see how Andris Biedrins goes!

I think in international basketball, EuroBasket is certainly one of the better balanced and more entertaining tourneys. So it will be interesting and as i've noted, lots of teams that will have a chance of winning... to make a top 3 is hard... However, I will try and do so by going through compeititon format.

You have the group stage that determines the top 3 teams in each of the 4 groups. That splits the teams into 2 new groups. Top 3 of group A and B turn into group E and Top 3 of C and D become group F.

The top four of E and F go into the knockout round... so here are my top 3 teams in each group in order:

Group A: Greece, Serbia, Russia
Group B: Spain, Croatia, Latvia
Group C: Lithuania, Germany, Turkey
Group D: France, Italy, Slovenia

After the next stage... the top 4 of groups E and F should be as follows:

Group E: Spain, Greece, Serbia, Russia
Group F: Lithuania, Germany, France, Turkey

Then this is the championship round... here are the progressive matchups...

Quarter Finals

Spain beats Turkey
Lithuania beats Russia
Germany beats Serbia
France beats Greece (Tough decision)

Semi Finals

Spain beats Germany (Germany lost to a low strength Spanish team just recently after all)
Lithuania beats France

Third place game: France beats Germany

Gold Medal Match: Lithuania beats Spain

I'm going with an upset... 1. Lithuania, 2. Spain, 3. France, 4. Germany

But yeah, Greece can be up there and so can other teams... will be exciting!

[Panco]

Lithuania: Getting their older players back. Panco, lots of people know the value of Sarunas! Don't worry. Siskauskas is pretty good too. I can't remember... is he the guard alongside Sarunas or one of the forwards?

Siskauskas is a SF, but he often plays as a SG, sometimes even as a PG or PF. A very universal player.
Anyway, Macijauskas is usually a guard alongside Sarunas. However, he's injured. We had an awesome trio Sarunas-Macijauskas-Siskauskas, but they haven't played together since 04 Olympics.

[Fresh8]

We had an awesome trio Sarunas-Macijauskas-Siskauskas, but they haven't played together since 04 Olympics.

Yep, so why didn't Sarunas play last year in Japan? I can't remember why. I think you would know though.

[Panco]

We had an awesome trio Sarunas-Macijauskas-Siskauskas, but they haven't played together since 04 Olympics.

Yep, so why didn't Sarunas play last year in Japan? I can't remember why. I think you would know though.

Because of wedding and he needed some rest.

[Fresh8]

Hey Panco and anyone else interested... wrote up another preview for the tournament. You can see it Here

Here's a lil preview.

On the eve of the European Championship, I will take a deeper look into the torunament. This article shall briefly preview of all the teams taking part, the format of the competition, and a prediction at who will be the top 4 teams in Europe after these next few weeks of competition.

Run-Down Of All The Teams

The Contenders:

Spain: World Champions. Should be favourites by default. I love Navarro and Calderon together in the backcourt. And of course, they have Pau Gasol.

Lithuania: Getting their older players back. They were without their older and experienced players last year in Japan but since they are all back this time around, Lithuania will be strong as usual.

Greece: Reigning champions. Good team defence. Solid side and will look to protect their title.

Germany: The German team haven't had a favourable leadup to the tourney but Dirk is confident in his side. Will be interesting to see how Dirk leads the germans. He usually defers to his team mates and tries to get his team involved; the true basketball way. However, I want to see if he takes issues into his own hands, if and when the time is right.

France: Boris Diaw is fast improving into a reliable leader and better player on the court and Les Bleus still has a talented squad. Tony Parker will once again mean a lot to the French team.

Teams That May Surprise You:

Read More

[Panco]

Lithuania 86:69 Turkey
A great game Sarunas was awesome again - 18 pts; 8 reb; 7 ast.
We played A LOT better than we did in warm-up games. Lithuania showed a great defense and well-balanced offense. I personally think, that Turkey was better without Okur and Turkoglu, they were too selfish today.

[Pera]

Guess who just won against Italy with a buzzer beater .

Teamwork thats what its all about. I thought we lost it,but Lakovic scores a three in the last second.

Now I can go to sleep happy, good night.

[Fresh8]

Dirk Scored 35 to lead his team to a close win...

Russia beat Serbia.

Oh, if you are keeping an eye out for Great Britain, they have won 6 straight... it's reallly good cause they need to do well in all their games they play in order to get that Olympic berth for the London Olympics. They are playing the the B comp...

And Spain cruised to victory. Navarro is out of the first group stage though...

[Fresh8]

Slovenia beat Poland. Pera will be happy about that.

Tony Parker scored 36 today... Serbia just lost in OT to Greece... Germany won behind Dirk's effort.

Spain won easily... not much else. I think Lithuania beat Italy (I think...) also won... And Russia too.

No big upstes on day 2.

[Tupik]

Parker was just huge against Italy, he was unstopable, even at three! France is playing quite good, specially on D, but we'll be having problems against hard defensive teams like Greece.

[Pera]

Slovenia beat Poland. Pera will be happy about that..

Yep, happy about that,

Though we're losing against France now, stupid Tony Parker .

Edit : Stupid refs. We got the lead now and we got a tehnical for no reason


Edit 2 : We're leading again six minutes to go .

[Panco]

Lithuania 84-80 Germany
Dirk 28 pts; 9 reb
Jasikevicius 15pts; 10 ast.
A tough game.. We were leading by 15-20 points all the time till the end of 3rd Q. Then we stopped somehow and Germans began shooting crucial and unbelievable 3s. Lith had 1 point lead and the ball, after an incredible 3 by Dirk with 11sec left. Songaila made 1 FT, but Germans got an offensive foul. Kaukenas made both of FT.
I was sure about the win all the time, though..
btw Refs really love Dirk. Too much, I have to say..
So Lithuania got the first place in our group.

Serbia lost to Israel and ended their performance in EuroBasket.. Kinda surprising..

[Panco]

Congrats, Pera. Parker lost his nerves and missed the final FT.
See you in group F..
I'm quite sure, lith will beat ya

[Pera]

We won, we freaking won !!

France we're winning by 15 ,we got back into the game. Rasho was ejected, but that didn't stop us. Every odd was against us and we still did it.

Now to celebrate this .

Edit : Panco don't be so sure . I hate to say anything , but we will see .

[Fresh8]

Wow Pera, Slovenia was first in their group. Nice work You guys are playing good.

I don't think they will slip out of the quarter final's now... haha

Group A: Greece, Serbia, Russia, Israel
Group B: Spain, Croatia, Latvia, Portugal
Group C: Lithuania, Germany, Turkey, Czhech Republic
Group D: France, Slovenia, Italy, Poland

My Group C was spot on... B: Latvia didn't make it... D was a lil off with France and Slovenia swapped around... and A was really stuffed... Russia, Greece, Israel then Serbia in real life...

Well... this is gonna get interesting

I wasn't too surprised Russia is doing this well... they have a caoch who just recently signed, (last year?) and AK-47 is really playign awesome to lead the team...

And when Saras went to the NBA, people tend to forget about him... he's still the King of Europe

[Kobe ftw]

Croatia ftw, well deserved win by Croatia, if we turn the page back for 2 years, everybody will remember how the officials robbed Croatia agains Spain in Belgrade.,

Only Gasol played very well, others Spain players sux:P

Croatia ftw once again:P

[Dean]

Sorry to skip back up a few posts, but Sit, did Deng end up playing for GB?

[Fresh8]

Yep, Deng is playing for them and they are doing awesome in EuroBasket Div B... they just made the next round with a big win... I'm hoping they get to the 2010 EuroBasket.. if they do, they will probably hold onto their automatic berth.

Deng's playing good too. I hope Ben Gordon decides to join in the near future Surprised he didn't join when Deng did.

I will no doubt write about it on my blog when the whole thing finishes!

[sdude]

Darko Milicic's comment after lost against Greece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci3j363HWQM

[Cornerthree]

Portugal 65-78 Russia

Well Russians are doing pretty well(even against Portugal a win is a win) I think with this win they tried to prove they can dominate against such low-leveled teams(though it's a surprise Portugal made this far).

Kirilenko doing some nice job as always, he's really got it going this year...

Prediction for Greece - Spain...


Greece 72-86 Spain

Based on what Greece was doing in this championship and the factor of J.C's comeback I think Spain will easily get this one...

[Panco]

Israel 80-75 Croatia..
A surprising result imo.. Y.Green was fabulous today - 17 points and 16 rebounds.
Croatia is really inconsistent so far.. A loss to Latvia, then they beat Spain, but lost to Israel. They're really depended on 3pt shots as I see.

[Effekt]

Woooo go Greece, I hope they go well, it's going to be hard but I can always have faith in them. Papaloukas ftw!!

[Fresh8]

wow, Israel is really having a good Summer... altho u coudl argue they've been playing far mroe compeitive games thsi Summer than any other team in the EuroBasket comp right now... i didnt even give them a chance before this started...

But I don't think too much of Croatia...

France V Germany. Anyone gonna have a tip?

I'm going with Germany by 2. OT game!

[Pera]

Darko sure lost his nerves in the video.

Slovenia won again against Turkey. I'm starting to wonder who can stop us .

Here is a to the quarterfinals .