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

[G R E Y]

Tough loss but Angola was able to remain competitive even with the awful shooting.

Lack of quality showed but it was a solid, fun group to root for.

We get to see more of KAT's dumb preening mug great...

[Muizha]

Wait Lauri played and they still lost by 26?! Credit to Germany but Finland really **** the bed.

Have they already qualified for Olympics?

Only two highest standing euro teams this tournament qualifies. Teams who make second round, qualify for qualifying I believed so Finland is out from olympics

!!! Was it carry over shock and disappointment from the previous game? Or too much pressure and they froze and buckled or what? There was so.much riding on this game and the result wasn't even close, and that's WITH Lauri.

Lots of shockers even early this WC.

I did think there were some sort of follow up Olympic qualifiers for teams that got eliminated from WC, no?

I think it goes like this:
Top 7 teams from WC qualify for Olympics.
Next 18 qualify to Olympic qualifiers (not including France, who are qualified to Olympics as hosts and special rules apply to Oceania, Africa, Asia i.e. top 1-2 teams from these regions qualify for the qual.tournament even if they are not among the top 7+18)
There already were pre-qualifiers this summer for teams, who do not participate in WC. Bahamas, Croatia, Poland (and some other teams that I dont remember now) qualified for the qualification tournament (yeah, sounds wierd )

[Nuntius]

Finland's run so far has been very, very disappointing. 297 points conceded in just 3 games is just oof. There's still the classification group to be played so it may get even worse. Let's hope that Finland is better in the classification stage.

[G R E Y]

Only two highest standing euro teams this tournament qualifies. Teams who make second round, qualify for qualifying I believed so Finland is out from olympics

!!! Was it carry over shock and disappointment from the previous game? Or too much pressure and they froze and buckled or what? There was so.much riding on this game and the result wasn't even close, and that's WITH Lauri.

Lots of shockers even early this WC.

I did think there were some sort of follow up Olympic qualifiers for teams that got eliminated from WC, no?

I think it goes like this:
Top 7 teams from WC qualify for Olympics.
Next 18 qualify to Olympic qualifiers (not including France, who are qualified to Olympics as hosts and special rules apply to Oceania, Africa, Asia i.e. top 1-2 teams from these regions qualify for the qual.tournament even if they are not among the top 7+18)
There already were pre-qualifiers this summer for teams, who do not participate in WC. Bahamas, Croatia, Poland (and some other teams that I dont remember now) qualified for the qualification tournament (yeah, sounds wierd )

Thanks yeah I recalled some type of qualifiers outside of WC. So based on this info, Finland is out of Olympics? Or will there be subsequent qualifiers for teams eliminated at the WC?

[The Number 9]

I did think there were some sort of follow up Olympic qualifiers for teams that got eliminated from WC, no?

There will be 4 places available in the Olympic qualifying tournaments (one place per tournament).
But I think they won't be eligible, they need to be in the best 16 teams not already qualified in this WC (still doable on paper, but I'm not confident for them).

More details here : https://olympics.com/en/news/how-to-qualify-basketball-paris-2024-qualification-system

[G R E Y]

There will be 4 places available in the Olympic qualifying tournaments (one place per tournament).
But I think they won't be eligible, they need to be in the best 16 teams not already qualified in this WC (still doable on paper, but I'm not confident for them).

More details here : https://olympics.com/en/news/how-to-qualify-basketball-paris-2024-qualification-system

Great info, thanks to you and everyone who contributed as well. It gets confusing quickly!

[Pachinko_]

See that's the difference, in FIBA what France did is a disaster that calls for immediate action, in the NBA it would be considered just a slow start and nobody would blink. Some fans would even cheer for them to keep losing to get a higher pick.

It completely does my head in, if you remove winning from the equation I don't know why the hell I'm supposed to watch... Wake me up when winning starts to matter.

[UcanUwill]

Only two highest standing euro teams this tournament qualifies. Teams who make second round, qualify for qualifying I believed so Finland is out from olympics

!!! Was it carry over shock and disappointment from the previous game? Or too much pressure and they froze and buckled or what? There was so.much riding on this game and the result wasn't even close, and that's WITH Lauri.

Lots of shockers even early this WC.

I did think there were some sort of follow up Olympic qualifiers for teams that got eliminated from WC, no?

I think it goes like this:
Top 7 teams from WC qualify for Olympics.
Next 18 qualify to Olympic qualifiers (not including France, who are qualified to Olympics as hosts and special rules apply to Oceania, Africa, Asia i.e. top 1-2 teams from these regions qualify for the qual.tournament even if they are not among the top 7+18)
There already were pre-qualifiers this summer for teams, who do not participate in WC. Bahamas, Croatia, Poland (and some other teams that I dont remember now) qualified for the qualification tournament (yeah, sounds wierd )

7 teams qualify, but not top 7 teams. It is still based on FIBA region, and I am certain only top two euro finishes qualify, I mean directly qualify to Olympics. So for example if all medalists are Euros, third team still wouldn't qualify, but phillipines or china could qualify if they finish 18th or something, if we assume other asian teams finish even lower.
That's why for Euros, France failing kind off actually hurt their chances, because France already had spot as host and wouldn't have counted as one if euro teams in this tournament,

[Hugi Mancura]

Wait Lauri played and they still lost by 26?! Credit to Germany but Finland really **** the bed.

Have they already qualified for Olympics?

Only two highest standing euro teams this tournament qualifies. Teams who make second round, qualify for qualifying I believed so Finland is out from olympics

!!! Was it carry over shock and disappointment from the previous game? Or too much pressure and they froze and buckled or what? There was so.much riding on this game and the result wasn't even close, and that's WITH Lauri.

Lots of shockers even early this WC.

I did think there were some sort of follow up Olympic qualifiers for teams that got eliminated from WC, no?

Longer response why Finland sucks. First Finland's roster outside Markkanen ja Salin are not good enough to succeed. Specially guards are very low quality and probably wouldn't find roster spot in any other European or top team of this tournament.

Finland pretty much won those games last year with their defense. But Finland's defense is very aggressive. Now other teams coaches have looked at Finland's defense and uses that aggression against them and Finland's coaching staff is incapable of making changes. If Finland would play more passive defense it would be better than it is now. Now players over commit on taking away three pointers while giving open layups. This is the reason why Finland's defense is second worse in this tournament (after Libanon). It really doesn't matter what Finland does on other end. With that defense you can't win anything.

On offense Markkanen isn't as good as he was last year, but also Maxhuni has taken a step backward and he probably was the main ball handler in team and ball handling is huge issue with current finnish team.Team is also young which means in this case means when there is a bad moment players get in the panic mode. Coaching staff doesn't know how to stop this. Last year team still had Koponen, who was put on the court every time panic started to creep in. On his prime he was Euroleague level PG. He was in his last tournament and thus not as good, but still had more basketball IQ and coolness than rest of the team combined, so he could always stop the bleeding.

So even if last years young players are older and wiser (hopefully) this team is much worse than the last year's team. And badly coached.

On Olympic qualifiers. Finland still has a change to qualify to the Olympic qualifiers, but it would need they have to win last two games and even then it is not certain. But unless Finland naturalizes a PG it is hard to see Finland to win any games in those qualifiers if they somehow succeed to win those remaining two games.

[Buckets22]

Why doesn’t Spellman simply eat the French players?

[UcanUwill]

They came from everywhere, they conquered nothing, total capitulation by France.

Here goes my 40+ W prediction...

[UcanUwill]

Why doesn’t Spellman simply eat the French players?

Lrrrrr, ruler of Omicron Persei 8

[Nuntius]

I think it goes like this:
Top 7 teams from WC qualify for Olympics.

Not exactly. It is true that 7 teams from WC qualify for the Olympics but it's not the top 7. It is the top teams from each continental confederation.

FIBA Asia, FIBA Africa and FIBA Oceania get 1 spot so only the top team (and by top team, I mean the one who gets the higher seed in the tournament) from each region qualifies for the Olympics.

FIBA Europe and FIBA Americas get 2 spots so the top two teams from these regions qualify.

FIBA Oceania has 2 teams in the tournament. Australia and New Zealand. Both of them are currently 1-1 as they go into their last game. Australia is facing the hosts, Japan, while New Zealand faces Greece. In both cases, the team who wins the game will advance to the second round. If Australia wins and New Zealand loses then Australia secures qualification for the Olympics. If New Zealand wins and Australia loses then New Zealand secures their qualification. If both teams win then it will depend on what happens in the second round. If they both lose, it will depend on what happens in the classification round and the classification games.

FIBA Africa has 5 teams in the tournament. Angola, Cape Verde, South Sudan, Ivory Coast and Egypt. All of them have won 1 game (Egypt is currently beating Mexico by 22 points and there's less than 4 minutes remaining so, yeah, I'm counting that as a win but none of them looks likely to advance to the second round. Egypt and Angola have already been eliminated (Angola has no chance to advance through a 3-way tie) whereas South Sudan and Cape Verde would need to beat Serbia and Slovenia respectively to advance to the second round. Ivory Coast is facing Brazil in the last game and they could advance with a win but Brazil is a pretty strong squad so this is unlikely as well. So, the classification groups and the classification games are going to play a massive role for who qualifies to the Olympics here. The one who does the best in the classification groups will be the one to secure their qualification for the Olympics.

FIBA Asia has 6 teams in the tournament. China, Japan, Philippines, Iran, Jordan and Lebanon. Japan is the only one who has a shot to advance as they're the only ones who have a game so far. It is possible for them to advance to the second round by beating Australia. It's not likely but it can happen. If they beat Australia then they have secured their qualification to the Olympics. But even if they don't, they're in a great spot. You see, the classification stage works similarly with the way the second round works. Group A matches up with Group B, Group C with Group D, Group E with Group F and Group G with Group H. And from the first group carry over, just like they do in the second round. The only difference is that it's the teams that finished bottom two instead of the ones that finished top two.

So, if Japan loses, they'll go into the classification groups along with Finland and the teams who finish bottom two in Group F. Group F is the group with Slovenia, Georgia, Cape Verde and Venezuela. Slovenia is 2-0, Georgia and Cape Verde are 1-1 while Venezuela is 0-2. Cape Verde is facing Slovenia on the last day and Georgia is facing Venezuela. Slovenia is one of the favorites so we could pencil them in for a 3-0 finish. Georgia is a pretty good team who beat Cape Verde by 25 on the first day. Cape Verde beat Venezuela by 6 points yesterday. So, I do expect Georgia to beat Venezuela which means that the bottom two of the group is Cape Verde and Venezuela. So, that would be the group then. Japan, Finland, Cape Verde, Venezuela. Japan and Cape Verde would carry over the one victory over Finland and Venezuela respectively while Finland and Venezuela would start off at a disadvantage. That gives Japan a pretty good chance at finishing in the first two spots of their group which means that they have a great chance of classifying anywhere from 17 to 24, especially since Finland is still a strong squad (despite their failure) and they have already beat them.

[Sofia]

Finland beside France is probably most disappointing team. We didn't really expect them to make through, but losing to Japan and not looking competitive at all against group favorites, is surprising.

Makes me wonder how importat Huff and Koponnen were in terms of leadership. Lauri also looked more like 2017 Lauri than last year's dominat version.

Wait Lauri played and they still lost by 26?! Credit to Germany but Finland really **** the bed.

Have they already qualified for Olympics?

He was invisible in the second half. The Boomers really locked in… something they failed to do from the start in the Germany game.

[Pachinko_]

Let me summarise FIBA's qualification process in one sentence for you:
it is ridiculously complicated and unpredictable.

[Sofia]

I’d take Japan under 75.5 points @1.84 and Boomers -5.5 for first quarter at 1.94.

They got a few rockets from Goorj in timeouts v Germany and I expect he has spent most of the last 48 hours yelling at them.

Josh Green moves to the starting line up and I expect Xavier Cooks will get more minutes, which based off the last game will be significantly better defensively than Duop (as would a folding chair).

[Sofia]

Australia playing like they’ve each shelved a full can of redbull, everything is at high pace and with purpose.

[Diop]

Australia playing like they’ve each shelved a full can of redbull, everything is at high pace and with purpose.

I think they’re enjoying the smaller competition

[Diop]

Sneaky shove by Ingles, how did he get away with that?

[makubesu]

I’m trying to back and forth between this and the Hanshin - Yokohama game, and the pace difference is breaking my brain