FIBA World Cup 2023 part 2 SEMIS (USA vs GERMANY : SERBIA vs CANADA) poll added

Buckets22 · Post #261 » by **Buckets22** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 8:24 am

SSD dont know how to keep their lead. They could've blown China out of the game now only 3pt up.

UcanUwill · Post #262 » by **UcanUwill** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 8:29 am

Tavares is wasted on this Verde team, they aren't capable of giving him ball inside,

Post #263 » by **Mavrelous** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:00 am

This is the 2nd game for VEN they finish the 1st half 50% from 3, 12/25 against SLO and 7/14 against CPV.

Buckets22 · Post #264 » by **Buckets22** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:11 am

Hollis Jefferson cooking some fine Jordanian dishes once again.

knicksfan974 · Post #265 » by **knicksfan974** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:13 am

Mirotic12 wrote:
G R E Y wrote:Also, is the Japan win over Finland surprising? I thought the latter would put up a bigger fight.

Yeah, a little bit of an upset, but not too much. Finland is a 3rd tier level European team, and Japan is an elite level Asian team, playing at home. So honestly not really surprising.

For Finland the result was a disaster, and for Japan a huge joyful surprise. The way I see it is that Finland was a quite clear favorite to win, having the best player, size advantage etc.

jk31 · Post #266 » by **jk31** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:17 am

UcanUwill wrote:Tavares is wasted on this Verde team, they aren't capable of giving him ball inside,

the team itself is such a strange construct. I remember back during the olympics qualifier in 2008, germany played the cape verdes and one of their players was playing Landesliga in germany, which is 7th division in germany. This year they got players from the 5th spanish division. I mean what the hell?! These are basically not even pros but amateurs. How did they qualify for the world cup?!

sisibilio · Post #267 » by **sisibilio** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:19 am

UcanUwill wrote:Zagars is one of the most pleasant players to watch. When I found out he signed with small Lithuanian team last year, I was shocked. If you remember, he was huge prospect and I loved him at a time. Not sure what wrong happened to his development but landing on crappy Lithuanian team was great bottom to restart and re kick off his career.

Injuries, lots of them.

Muizha · Post #268 » by **Muizha** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:36 am

Am I crazy or this South Sudan team may be a problem for Serbia as well?

Muizha · Post #269 » by **Muizha** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:43 am

sisibilio wrote:
UcanUwill wrote:Zagars is one of the most pleasant players to watch. When I found out he signed with small Lithuanian team last year, I was shocked. If you remember, he was huge prospect and I loved him at a time. Not sure what wrong happened to his development but landing on crappy Lithuanian team was great bottom to restart and re kick off his career.

Injuries, lots of them.

Yeah, bad luck with injuries... albeit none of them were very serious (such as torn knee ligaments). Something always seemed to happen to him, when he started to play well, like when he was fighting for significant playing time with his Spanish ACB club, or when he was rented out to German Bundesliga or even more recently in WC qualifiers, when he scored 13 points in like 15 minutes against Turkey and injured his hamstring. He also missed some qualifier games due to being sick with COVID, so all in all has been a few unlucky years for him.

LuDux1 · Post #270 » by **LuDux1** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:43 am

UcanUwill wrote:Zagars is one of the most pleasant players to watch. When I found out he signed with small Lithuanian team last year, I was shocked. If you remember, he was huge prospect and I loved him at a time. Not sure what wrong happened to his development but landing on crappy Lithuanian team was great bottom to restart and re kick off his career.

Injuries. He didn't even finish last season because of one or two

Edit: must type faster

Buckets22 · Post #271 » by **Buckets22** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:55 am

Looks like Cabo Verde will be having a World Cup win. They managed to execute well in the crunch and Venezuela bricked a few threes.

Post #272 » by **Nuntius** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:56 am

jk31 wrote:This year they got players from the 5th spanish division. I mean what the hell?!

So, I checked their roster and it doesn't look like that this is entirely accurate. They have 5 players playing in Portugal's top flight, 3 players playing in African leagues (1 in Cape Verde, 2 in Cameroon), one player playing in Bulgaria, Tavares who plays for Real and it only gets weird after that. They have one guy who plays for CB Almeria, a team who plays in Spain's 3rd division, and they also have a guy who plays for the Providence Pirates in the States, a professional team who plays in what looks like a reconstructed ABA team.

jk31 wrote:These are basically not even pros but amateurs. How did they qualify for the world cup?!

They beat Nigeria in the group phase during the windows and ended up grabbing 3rd place in the Second Round (below Ivory Coast and Angola but ahead of Nigeria). So, they qualified over Nigeria.

lambchop · Post #273 » by **lambchop** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:58 am

Muizha wrote:
sisibilio wrote:
UcanUwill wrote:Zagars is one of the most pleasant players to watch. When I found out he signed with small Lithuanian team last year, I was shocked. If you remember, he was huge prospect and I loved him at a time. Not sure what wrong happened to his development but landing on crappy Lithuanian team was great bottom to restart and re kick off his career.

Injuries, lots of them.

Yeah, bad luck with injuries... albeit none of them were very serious (such as torn knee ligaments). Something always seemed to happen to him, when he started to play well, like when he was fighting for significant playing time with his Spanish ACB club, or when he was rented out to German Bundesliga or even more recently in WC qualifiers, when he scored 13 points in like 15 minutes against Turkey and injured his hamstring. He also missed some qualifier games due to being sick with COVID, so all in all has been a few unlucky years for him.

It's generally very difficult to get playing time on an ACB playoff team. The Spanish style of play is also slightly different from rest of Europe cause it's somewhat more positionless to where players are sometimes asked to do different things depending on the opponent, unless you're an absolute specialist.

The German bundesliga is probably the place where he could get the most playing time while still facing decent competition and maybe also playing Eurocup and then using that as a springboard, similar to what Yago, Tyrese Rice etc. have done.

Or maybe one of the weaker Euroleague teams like Asvel would be willing to sign him.

Post #274 » by **Mavrelous** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:00 am

The Nashama are hanging on with the tall blacks, I'm impressed.

Buckets22 · Post #275 » by **Buckets22** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:00 am

And its official, nation of just half a million people with their first win in history. What a moment.
World Cup basketball at its best.

About them qualifying - people really underestimate the lacklustre guard play in most of the African. If you have a well organized perimeter defence and motion offence you can do a lot of damage to the teams there, even established ones like Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal etc. And Cabo Verde is just that - organized and in control team.

Post #276 » by **Nuntius** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:02 am

donkki wrote:
Mirotic12 wrote:
G R E Y wrote:Also, is the Japan win over Finland surprising? I thought the latter would put up a bigger fight.

Yeah, a little bit of an upset, but not too much. Finland is a 3rd tier level European team, and Japan is an elite level Asian team, playing at home. So honestly not really surprising.

For Finland the result was a disaster, and for Japan a huge joyful surprise. The way I see it is that Finland was a quite clear favorite to win, having the best player, size advantage etc.

Agreed, this was a major surprise to me. Finland is a rather good team. A year ago to this very day, Finland became the first team in the world to earn a qualifying spot to this World Cup (well, the Ivory Coast secured their spot on the same day as well so technically they were both tied for first).

Japan played out of their minds in that 4th quarter. They were outstanding. They deserve all the praise they're getting.

Post #277 » by **Nuntius** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:03 am

Buckets22 wrote:And its official, nation of just half a million people with their first win in history. What a moment.
World Cup basketball at its best.

About them qualifying - people really underestimate the lacklustre guard play in most of the African. If you have a well organized perimeter defence and motion offence you can do a lot of damage to the teams there, even established ones like Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal etc. And Cabo Verde is just that - organized and in control team.

Extending the pool of teams that participate does lend itself to surprises and results like this one. It definitely is interesting to see.

Post #278 » by **Mavrelous** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:08 am

Go Jordan Kobe, Go!

Read on Twitter

?s=20

Buckets22 · Post #279 » by **Buckets22** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:16 am

Tavares over 11.5 rebounds and RHJ aka Jordanian Kobe over 18.5 points were the easiest money I've made in a while.

Sgt Major · Post #280 » by **Sgt Major** » Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:20 am

mariller wrote:
Sgt Major wrote:
G R E Y wrote:I think it has to do with their choosing to play in Russia after it attacked Ukraine. I think those players are not allowed to play for the national team as a result.

French association is a bunch of idiots, like all the other virtue-signalling morons.

Yeah no, this is not virtue signaling. This is a real issue. F*** R*****

If the same applied to the US and NATO bombing the **** out of the Middle East and Yugoslavia, then I would maybe agree.

new WORLD CHAMPIONS will be?