The European Basketball Championships, or Eurobasket, is set to begin.

Twenty-four European nations will battle over the next 19 days (August 31 – September 18, 2011) in this 37th continental championship.

Follow each game of Eurobasket 2011 in our Eurobasket forum.

Not only are bragging rights at stake, but the top two teams will receive automatic bids to the 2012 Olympics held in London.

The tournament will feature 24 teams – the host nation  (Lithuania), nine teams that qualified through the 2010 World Championshisp (Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, and Turkey), five teams that qualified through the Eurobasket qualifying round (Belgium, Great Britain, Israel, Macedonia, and Montenegro), seven made the tournament through FIBA’s decision (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Italy, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine), and the final two teams through an Additional Qualifying Round (Finland and Portugal).