Hello Seville, hello Balkman! Gilas drawn in Group B of 2014 FIBA World Cup
For a good fifty minutes, the eyes of basketball fans around the world focused on a brief ceremony in Barcelona to witness the draw for the 2014 FIBA World Cup as representatives from the 24 participating nations waited with baited breath which countries they would be going up against the preliminary round of the sport’s ultimate tournament which will be held on August 30 to September 14 in Spain.
The Philippines was represented in the proceedings by Head Coach Chot Reyes and new Team Manager Aboy Castro (sans Butch Antonio who is now in the same capacity with the PBA’s Meralco Bolts). The draw has held at the Palau de la Musica Catalana and was broadcast live around the world. Locally, the draw happened at 2:00AM and was aired on Solar Sports and BTV. It was hosted by Spanish Moto GP presenter Nico Abad and Spanish actress Tania Llasera.
After a series of video presentations (and a bunch of ad-libbing by the hosts), the draw proper went underway and it was presided by FIBA Sports Director (and legendary referee trainer) Lubomir Kotleba (a Manila visitor a few years back). Assisting him in the first portion of the draw were Puerto Rican hoops icon Jose “Piculin” Ortiz and Croatian legend Dino Radja and were later “substituted” by Angolan hero Jean-Jacques Conceicão and perhaps one of the most defining names in Spanish basketball history (their version of “The Big J” Robert Jaworski) Juan Antonio “Epi” San Epifanio.
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While there were moments during the actual draw that Kotleba struggled with which action was to be performed, everyone began understanding how everything would work as the process went on.
For those of you still wondering how the tournament will work, here goes:
There will be four groups (A, B, C, D) containing six teams in the preliminary stages. The top four teams from each group will advance to the second round of the preliminaries. In the second round the qualified squads from the respective brackets (upper=Groups A & B, lower Groups C & D) will then form two new groups (Groups A & B now become Group E, while Groups C & D now become Group F) and will go up against the teams they haven’t faced yet. The top four from each of the new groups will advance to the knockout quarterfinals until a champion is crowned.
But before all of that could happen, however, the draw had to be held to determine the actual composition of the groups for the preliminary stages.
FIBA divided the 24 nations into six groups of four or “pots” as they were referred to. The pots were determined geographically with a few modifications having countries belonging to one FIBA zone being grouped together.
Recently FIBA had also revealed the four “Wild Cards” (Greece, Brazil, Finland and Turkey) that will be joining the twenty qualified nations and they were also included in the mix. The Philippines was in Pot 3 (FIBA Asia) which included champion Iran, bronze medallists Korea and FIBA Oceania titlists Australia.
Pot 1 had the top four ranked teams in the world with the host nation (Spain), the reigning Olympic champions (USA), 2004 Olympic kings Argentina and Eurobasket silver medallists Lithuania.
Since Spain and the USA were given the top seeding, both countries were separated in the brackets with Spain (upper bracket) being placed in Group A and the USA (lower bracket) being installed in Group C. Argentina was later drawn into Group B and Lithuania began Group D.
Gilas was eventually drawn into Group B with Argentina, Senegal (FIBA Africa bronze medallists), Croatia (Eurobasket fourth placer), Puerto Rico (FIBA Americas silver medallists) and Greece (Wild Card—eleventh place in Eurobasket).
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Kotleba also had the initial “rankings” drawn and the Philippines will be number one in the group. These rankings will help FIBA in creating the schedule for the prelims. Here’s everything:
GROUP A (Host City: Granada—Palacio Municipal de Deportes de Granada, seating capacity: 7,500)
#1 Spain (ESP)
#2 Serbia (SRB)
#3 France (FRA)
#4 Brazil (BRA)
#5 Egypt (EGY)
#6 Iran (IRI)
Immediately you will notice the misfortune of the host nation—not that they won’t advance, but they are in the proverbial “Group of Death” with France (the reigning Eurobasket titlists), Iran (the reigning FIBA Asia champions), and Egypt (the FIBA Africas runners-up) with only Serbia (the last team to qualify from Europe) and Brazil (a Wild Card this year, but a stalwart in the FIBA Americas) as the non-podium finishers in the group. They also will be playing their prelims matches in the smallest stadium of all six host cities (Barcelona and the capital Madrid will be hosting the knockout stages). This will suck for the millions of Spaniards who will be flocking to support their “baloncesto” squad. Spain should have no problem advancing, but could be in a bit of a challenge topping their group.
GROUP B (Host City: Seville—Palacio Municipal de Deportes San Pablo, seating capacity: 10,200)
#1 Philippines (PHI)
#2 Senegal (SEN)
#3 Puerto Rico (PUR)
#4 Argentina (ARG)
#5 Greece (GRE)
#6 Croatia (CRO)
This isn’t a bad draw at all for Gilas! Doing the math, all Team Philippines has to do is win two games in the prelims and it could qualify for the second round (barring any ties and complications). I’m quite sure that of all the video Coach Chot and Aboy are preparing to view now, the ones concerning Senegal and Greece might be of immediate interest to them. Knowing how FIBA schedules, Gilas could be opening against the African third-placers on August 30 (August 31 in Manila). Here's what Coach Chot had to say after the proceedings ended.
GROUP C (Host City: Bilbao—Bizkaia Arena, seating capacity: 15,414)
#1 Dominican Republic (DOM)
#2 Turkey (TUR)
#3 United States (USA)
#4 Finland (FIN)
#5 New Zealand (NZL)
#6 Ukraine (UKR)
Team USA should rout the opposition by an average margin of forty points here. The Americans have two Wild Cards in their group (Turkey and Finland), the second-placer in a two country zone (New Zealand of FIBA Oceania) the FIBA Americas only qualified team that didn’t finish on the podium (Domincan Republic) and the sixth place team coming of the Eurobasket (Ukraine). Gilas would have loved to be in this group, (and I believe Coach Chot made that known).
GROUP D (Host City: Gran Canaria—Gran Canaria Arena, seating capacity: 11,500)
#1 Slovenia (SLO)
#2 Lithuania (LTU)
#3 Angola (ANG)
#4 Korea (KOR)
#5 Mexico (MEX)
#6 Australia (AUS)
I will wager that there will be no squad coming of this group unscathed. It may not be the “Group of Death” but it comes close. All the teams are almost evenly matched and Lithuania is the lowest ranked team from Pot 1. Korea might even qualify for the second round here. If all the important pieces of each team, it will be very interesting.
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Among the interesting sidebars that I immediately notice in the groupings is that Senegal is beatable. They do have some NBA talent in Hamady N’Diaye and Mouhamed Sene as well as a naturalized American in point guard Louis Adams of South Carolina. Adams is the shortest of the lot at 6’1”, but the Senegalese are a slow bunch that can be outrun by Gilas.
Another is that Greece is rebuilding. “The human alphabet” Giannis Antetokuonmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks and “franchise face” Vassilis Spanoulis are the cornerstones of the squad, but they are slowly weeding out their veterans. There are also allegations of internal turmoil within their federation; hence they only could qualified for the tournament as a Wild Card.
But perhaps the one that Filipino fans will forward to is the unlikely reunion with infamous former Petron import Renaldo Balkman as he has been a mainstay for the Puerto Rican national team. That encounter may take some of the spotlight away from the awesome talent of their backcourt led by Carlos Arroyo and J.J. Barea. Will June Mar Fajardo avenge Arwind Santos? Stay tuned!
The first reality of the upcoming FIBA World Cup has now passed and before we know it Gilas will be on a plane heading to Seville. While it’s a foregone conclusion that the Philippines will most likely not win the title, the learning that will be garnered from the almost three weeks in Spain will be invaluable to the country’s basketball program and who knows? Maybe in the next edition of this grand event, the Philippines could even topple some of the world’s elite.
I will be preparing a few articles on the would-be Gilas opponents in the coming weeks and Yahoo! Sports Philippines will be keeping a close eye on the national team’s developments leading up to the tournament itself.
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So we now know our groupmates. Let’s now go about surprising the world.
Follow Noel Zarate on Twitter (@NoelZarate) and email sportztackle@yahoo.com
