Eurobasket 2022 (daily OP updates), day 11, all quarter finals teams known, Italy shocks Europe, eliminates Serbia

[BernteB]

As for Hartenstein, the other players never liked him cause he was/is a prick. They preferred not to have him on the team.

source?

[Torgeir Bryn]

Big win 87-68 for Norway yesterday against Slovakia in the pre-qualifier to Eurobasket 2025. It's only pretty recently that the Norwegian national team was re-established and started playing games again. They are ranked as one of the worst European teams (91 on the Fiba-ranking), but beat 62 ranked Slovakia behind 37 points from Harald Frey.

Frey plays for BG Göttingen in Germany and is their most important player alongside forward Karamo Jawara, who played in Girona with Marc Gasol last season. I was most impressed by the team rebounding in this game. Norway is a very small team, even their bigs are barely 2 meter/6'7ish. Still they outrebounded Slovakia, who had a couple of 7-footers, 44-28.

They will face Denmark next on Sunday. They had one big and one very close loss to them in the first round of the qualifiers and will hope for revenge.

Denmark lost their first game to North-Macedonia on an incredible buzzer-beater from behind half court!

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[Infinite Llamas]

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve never been a Giannis fan but he really has been putting it all together these last couple of years and I’ve appreciated watching him a lot more. Great guy. Great player. Looking forward to many more years dueling against him in the East.

[Ruma85]

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve never been a Giannis fan but he really has been putting it all together these last couple of years and I’ve appreciated watching him a lot more. Great guy. Great player. Looking forward to many more years dueling against him in the East.

How come, What don't you like about him?

[Nuntius]

Norway is a very small team, even their bigs are barely 2 meter/6'7ish.

This always astounded me. I know that Norwegian people tend to be quite tall overall (average height for Norwegian men is around 5'11, afaik) and you're not a tiny country either (at a bit more than 5 million population). Why don't tall Norwegians play basketball? Are sports like bandy/volleyball and hockey that much more popular that they just siphon off all the tall athletic talent that you have? I know that countries like the Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark have issues as well. It always surprised me.

[Ruma85]

Norway is a very small team, even their bigs are barely 2 meter/6'7ish.

This always astounded me. I know that Norwegian people tend to be quite tall overall (average height for Norwegian men is around 5'11, afaik) and you're not a tiny country either (at a bit more than 5 million population). Why don't tall Norwegians play basketball? Are sports like bandy/volleyball and hockey that much more popular that they just siphon off all the tall athletic talent that you have? I know that countries like the Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark have issues as well. It always surprised me.

It's due to various of things, culture, peer pressure, weather.
These countries don't have much warm weather compared to other countries in Europe that have a warmer climate.

[Torgeir Bryn]

Norway is a very small team, even their bigs are barely 2 meter/6'7ish.

This always astounded me. I know that Norwegian people tend to be quite tall overall (average height for Norwegian men is around 5'11, afaik) and you're not a tiny country either (at a bit more than 5 million population). Why don't tall Norwegians play basketball? Are sports like bandy/volleyball and hockey that much more popular that they just siphon off all the tall athletic talent that you have? I know that countries like the Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark have issues as well. It always surprised me.

I don't think we have any athletes that are above 6'8 in any sport. They used to give growth stopping hormones to kids that looked like they would grow to be above that height. So I would guess that's part of it.

But there are some taller athletes (6'4-6'7) in other sports. Soccer is by far the biggest, so some of them are there (Haaland is 6'5). Handball players are usually pretty tall and strong. Volleyball and hockey might take some too. Skiing is very popular, but skiers are usually a different kind of athletes.

I think the biggest problem with getting kids into basketball at a young age is a lack of available courts. We don't have enough indoor arenas, which is a problem when there are certain months of the year when you can't play outside. The indoor arenas are already overbooked and basketball competes with other sports like handball, bandy and gymnastics for hall time. So even if you have practice time with your basketball team, you don't have the opportunity to just go there and play with your friends and hang out, like you do at a soccer field.

[UcanUwill]

Shout out to Cameroonian players who aren't too big or too french to actually represent their country.

[skones]

"GiAnNiS wIlL bE eXpOsEd" folks need not contribute to this thread any further, because it was obvious before, and even more obvious now, there is no validity to what you think, you are embarassing.

Well he did play poorly in fiba enviroment planty of times before, so no validity? He had great game, props to Giannis.

As "Giannis," 5 games, in 2019, when he was a completely different player. Certainly not "plenty." So, no validity, because you'd be blindly ignoring the progress he's made with his game since that juncture.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

Did USA qualify for the Olympics yet? Honestly, I have not been following. Not even sure if this is the World Cup to qualify for the Olympics.

[GusT15]

Did USA qualify for the Olympics yet? Honestly, I have not been following. Not even sure if this is the World Cup to qualify for the Olympics.

As of 2020, qualification for the Olympic Games is through the FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Universality remains in place for the qualifying process for the Olympic Games, thereby ensuring that each continent is represented.

The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 will produce seven directly qualified national teams for the Olympic Games, with hosts* France receiving automatic qualification to the event. The seven spots will include two teams from Americas, two teams from Europe, one team from Africa, one team from Asia and one team from Oceania.

The four remaining places in the 12-team Olympic field are reserved for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments 2024, with two rounds of Qualifying Tournaments for Paris 2024.

The first round, the FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournaments will be played at the continental level and will produce five teams who will go through to the second round, the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments 2024.

Twenty-four teams will be participating in four Olympic Qualifying Tournaments with the 3 highest placed teams from Africa, Americas, and Asia/Oceania will be selected after the 16 highest placed teams from the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023, and five teams through the pre-qualifying tournaments. The winner of each tournament will qualify for the Men’s Olympic Basketball Tournament.

The next Olympic Games will take place in Paris in 2024 from July 26 to August 11.

[lambchop]

As for Hartenstein, the other players never liked him cause he was/is a prick. They preferred not to have him on the team.

source?

I played semi professionally in Germany. When he was still a young prospect the talent was evident, but basketball Germany is tiny and my coach at the time was well connected. So news about attitude issues spreads quickly.

But I said "was/is" cause maybe that changed and he has matured. I don't live there anymore.

[Infinite Llamas]

"GiAnNiS wIlL bE eXpOsEd" folks need not contribute to this thread any further, because it was obvious before, and even more obvious now, there is no validity to what you think, you are embarassing.

Well he did play poorly in fiba enviroment planty of times before, so no validity? He had great game, props to Giannis.

As "Giannis," 5 games, in 2019, when he was a completely different player. Certainly not "plenty." So, no validity, because you'd be blindly ignoring the progress he's made with his game since that juncture.

I think the point is…wait for it…that Giannis is a better player now than in 2019. Hence why he’s doing better now than then. This is capt obvious ish

[CharityStripe34]

Well he did play poorly in fiba enviroment planty of times before, so no validity? He had great game, props to Giannis.

As "Giannis," 5 games, in 2019, when he was a completely different player. Certainly not "plenty." So, no validity, because you'd be blindly ignoring the progress he's made with his game since that juncture.

I think the point is…wait for it…that Giannis is a better player now than in 2019. Hence why he’s doing better now than then. This is capt obvious ish

Gianni has evolved but both the roster and (especially) the coaching in 2019 was really weak. The former NT coach, Skourtopoulos, was considered a "taverniaris" or "man of the tavern." AKA a guy who sits there and doesn't know squat. He had Freak playing next to multiple non-shooters on the floor at the same time and they barely ran any actual offense.

The biggest x-factor since then is clearly Itoudis, who is a world-cass Euroleague coach.

[LuDux1]

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[UcanUwill]

For how good Jonas can be on offense and on the glass, these last few games reminded me how awful he is guarding pick and roll. Pick and roll him and he is in no mans land every time. I already see Luka and Goran playing him of the floor. I really feared Montenegro will pick and pop Jonas with Dubjlevic and its gonna be a disaster, but interestingly and logically, Lithuania put their PFs on Dubljevic. Dubjlevic could really destroy guys like Kuzminskas and Žukauskas in the post, but Montenegro hasn't adapted to that and insisting to target Jonas, but hes not guarding a very dangerous man which is smart in that sense.

[UcanUwill]

Brazdeikis is not a good shooter at all.

[UcanUwill]

Hungary beats Czech republic. Hanga 20/12/5

[mpoo_sin]

Bosnia Herzegovina just shat the bed big time. Giving France OT. Let s see if they can still win

[mpoo_sin]

wtf.. did not know that flopping is a T in FIBA.
I like it.