Qualification for EC 09 in Poland

[Toxicity]

08 July 2008

Italian basketball fans will be feeling a little better about their EuroBasket 2009 qualifying campaign after both Danilo Gallinari and Daniel Hackett were on Tuesday named in an 18-man squad for the forthcoming Bormio Tournament.

With NBA commitments preventing both Andrea Bargnani and Marco Belinelli from playing for Italy this summer, national team boss Carlo Recalcati can ill afford to miss star forward Gallinari and promising playmaker Hackett.

Gallinari was recently selected sixth overall in the NBA draft by the New York Knicks and there have been fears that he may have to work out with the team in America and miss the Division A games, while Hackett is balancing the demands of a being student/athlete at the University of Southern California.

Some of the Italy veterans have been named in the group with Marco Mordente, Angelo Gigli and Matteo Soragna and Massimo Bulleri included.

Luca Garri, who had a very strong first phase of the preparations with Italy, is not involved and veterans Gianluca Basile and Denis Marconato are still being given time off after their busy campaign with Barcelona in the ACB and the Euroleague.

Guard Daniele Cinciarini, another who impressed Recalcati earlier in the summer, is among the 18 players for Bormio.

The Italians will play a friendly against Israel on July 27 and then against Poland two days later in Bormio.

They will then play in an international tournament in Bormio from July 31 to August 2 against Israel, France and Poland.

Italy will play another friendly against France on August 5 in the same city.

Recalcati's team will take on Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland in EuroBasket 2009 qualifying games.

Italy squad for Bormio: Valerio Amoroso, Massimo Bulleri, Daniele Cavaliero, Daniele Cinciarini, Alessandro Cittadini, Luigi Datome, Christian Di Giuliomaria, Tommaso Fantoni, Danilo Gallinari, Angelo Gigli, Daniel Hackett, Stefano Mancinelli, Andrea Michelori, Marco Mordente, Giuseppe Poeta, Matteo Soragna, Luca Vitali, Joel Zacchetti.

Well, i don't know what to think... i'm surprised (upset) about the lack of any center (just PFs) in this team... Rocca, Maggioli, Crosariol, Marconato... all left at home, apparently.

It's hard to imagine this team competing against Serbia... especially under the basket where, i fear, we'll be destroyed by the likes of Milicic, Kristic, etc...

[Srle]

Krstic

[Hakkapeliitta]

Rannikko might miss this autumn's qualification games. His heel-injury has not healed yet properly.

http://www.yle.fi/urheilu/lajit/koripallo/2008/07/rannikko_sivussa_koriksen_em-karsinnasta_113466.html

Edit: Behind the link there was a 5 minute video interview, too. Another guard Juha Sten is also injured, and as Koponen is in Las Vegas, the team has at the moment only one guard, Petri Virtanen. Well, he really should play only as a SG... At some point Rannikko has already thought that his career is over, but now his thoughts were not that negative. The interview is in Finnish, but in the background you can see Finnish NT guys playing 3vs3 .

[elaj]

Rannikko might miss this autumn's qualification games. His heel-injury has not healed yet properly.

I remember him having same problems already for his time in Olimpija Ljubljana. Maybe it wouldn't be bad for his health to rest one summer.

[ArnoldPettybone]

Ibrahim Jaaber will probably play for Bulgaria.

[Juan Carlos Nadal]

Ibrahim Jaaber will probably play for Bulgaria.

I think that right now we have more naturalized players to choose from rather than natives ...

At least in the past national federations were trying to find excuses for the naturalizations (e.g. the player was the great great great grandson of a greek/italian/geerman etc). Now they don't even do that. I would have loved to to see our federation claiming that Jaaber is a 4th generation Pomak

[Nikoo]

Lets not forget Krasimir Kirilov errrrr Keydren Clark

Bulgaria will play friendly game against Poland on 25 of July. Our national team spend the last week whooping U20 teams of Bulgaria and Macedonia.

I would have loved to to see our federation claiming that Jaaber is a 4th generation Pomak

Or telling in Bozidar Dimitrov(famous bulgarian historian) style - "The first man on planet Earth was a bulgarian, Jaaber and Clark are humans and therefore bulgarians"

[Iverson.A]

Lior Eliyahu will join the Israeli national team after finishing his fight with Sherf.

Great Britain, be prepared.

[ArnoldPettybone]

Its Great Britain ---. Let's not go there. JCN.

[Iverson.A]

Israel 77 Italy 72.

Italy led by 15 because of a bad half by Israel, and when everything seems darks, came out Guy Pnini and saved Israel with Amit Tamir and a 3 point show.

I heared Italians showed the game, any highlights I can see somewhere?

[Picek]

Poland - Italy 51-43
mid through third quarter, game live on Rai Sport
men Italy looks like crap..
no defense, no offense, no team play, outsmarted..
Gortat is doing whatever he wants..

[Picek]

Poland won 75-74
they were up by 13 mid through the fourth quarter but then italians fought back with some three point shooting..
but basicly my impression is that Italy will dissappear from the list of serious european bball national teams if they don't find a true big men...
without him they will just become another one crazy shooting team with no real threat to any serious team..
it was hillarious what Gortat did to them under the boards..
he scored 28 points and got 13 rebs and practicly alone destroyed Italy,
Ignerski was also good with some nice shooting but the rest of the team looked mediocre to say atleast..
I'm seriously concern if this Italy team can really make the next EC in Poland if they continue playing like this..

[Toxicity]

Poland won 75-74
they were up by 13 mid through the fourth quarter but then italians fought back with some three point shooting..
but basicly my impression is that Italy will dissappear from the list of serious european bball national teams if they don't find a true big men...
without him they will just become another one crazy shooting team with no real threat to any serious team..
it was hillarious what Gortat did to them under the boards..
he scored 28 points and got 13 rebs and practicly alone destroyed Italy,
Ignerski was also good with some nice shooting but the rest of the team looked mediocre to say atleast..
I'm seriously concern if this Italy team can really make the next EC in Poland if they continue playing like this..

It was just the 2nd preparation game... in fact we have won the last 4 friendly games played... yeah, we lack a decent future big man if Crosariol doesn't step up (in the end we need a big man who grabs rebounds and blocks shots, not more) but we also have very good talent in the other positions starting from SF (Gallinari, Datome) to PF (Bargnani, Mancinelli, Gigli)... we're not bad even in the PG (Poeta-Vitali-Hackett is a good trio) and SG spots... Historically we lack good true big men (outside Dino Meneghin) but we achieved medals even without them... i think our main problem right now is the coaching: Recalcati is done...

[Srle]

We won first game against Italy. But I am not staisfied. I hope this team will qulify for Eurobasket. But in order to contend for the title we need:Milicic,Pavlovic,Stojakovic,Macvan etc.

[Srle]

Wow Italy lost to Hungary.