2012 Olympic Qualifying Tournament

[Pero Antic]

@Mindozas
the played at 2009 and 2011?? come on they finished 13th both times and that is proving nothing. The first 5 teams of every qualifing group who by the way conists 6 teams qualified for that tourney in your country the whole qualification campaign was i big joke. Lituania is 5th in Europe Great Britain is 13th and your country have ten times bigger name in that sport but still they have qualified. For me its clear They dont deserve it i dont care what happend in 2008 or 2000.

[Pero Antic]

Macedonia is hardly on the level of Lithuania/Russia/Greece ( greece with the return of spanoulis and the youngster of olympiakos alongside the most improved player in euroleague this year Printezis )
Along with PR and DR are the 3 teams that are most likely to upset one of the three teams but other than that its not on the level of those 3 and provided those 3 play without any major absences its hardl for any other team to qualify

i know but you and your fellow greeks said the same lines before the eurobasket you remember that??? We are hardly on the level??? We played Russia Twice and we lost both games in the very last seconds Lithuania was beaten at home getting support by 14k and the refs we still beat them with just 4 1/2 men on the court while the lituanians rotated their squad as hell. You guys lost by a margin of 14 but it could have been easly more because we let you play in the last minutes of that game knowing its done. I know you will be much stronger now with your Olimpiakos youngsters and of course spanoulis if he returns but still you will be surprised, we know much more about you than you guys know about us. And honestly PR and DR are not gonna stop us qualfying. But lets wait until july there are lot of preperation games we will see.

PS: By the way you should help your team and borow them some money so they can effort the flight to Venezuela cheers

[Mindozas]

Great Britain didn't get a place for free. They must've had to qualify to either 2009 or 2011 Eurobaskets to have a chance to participate in London as hosts - they qualified to both! Moreover they weren't pushovers or smth, even if they failed to bring their best team. IMO now they'll have the team not worse than China had 4 years back, which btw let 2 Asian teams to qualify without any additional tournaments. It's quite a lot for 12 teams tournament, especially since Asia didn't show any good results. The same were for Australia and New Zealend in 2000, which was even more wrong, since the Oceania federation basically consists of only them two.
So all in all, I'm not familiar with handball situation in GB, but in basketball tourney IMO GB deserves a spot as a host, they didn't come out of nowhere, they already proved they aren't pushovers. I understand that this could've mean one more additional place, which most probably Russia would've had taken as 3rd team in Eurobasket, but I really see nothing criminal to give it to British team, even if it means the harder task for my Lithuanian team and believe me - Olympics here means so much more than any WC or Eurobasket together.

[adamosmaki]

Yeah great season for olimpiakos as they had many problems at he beginnig and managed from outsiders to develop into favorite for the euroleague title which they won.

Greece should be very strong this summer but i think the difference between Greece, Lituhania, Macedonia and Russia is very small and a lot will depend on the daily form of the invidual players. On other side its a shame draw they made for this years olimpic b-ball tournement. I mean in group A you have teams like USA, France, Argentina,two top european teams i guess and Tunisia. In group B only SPain and the other european team which has to qualfy yet will be in alongside with Australia, Brazil, China, Great Britain.
Totally unbalanced groups and i do not understand this whole "lets push the great britain baskteball" thing.

They dont deserve to be there i know they where host but the tragedy is they only have a team because the olympics are going to be in london they formed this GB-team just a few years ago and only for that purpose and which will probably fell apart after this. But we know in Fiba its all about the money an easier way to qualify for the british guys for the 1/4finals dont exist. While My Macedonia will struggle to qualify for this tournement they already have their "deserved" place.

Same goes for Handball where the british federation is searching in newspapers for people who want to compete for them in their teams...i mean why??? there are a lot better teams who dont play in the olympics because the brits are to selfish to confess that they dont have teams to compete. sorry about the off -topic

Fyrom is hardly on the level of Lithuania/Russia/Greece ( greece with the return of spanoulis and the youngster of olympiakos alongside the most improved player in euroleague this year Printezis )
Along with PR and DR are the 3 teams that are most likely to upset one of the three teams but other than that its not on the level of those 3 and provided those 3 play without any major absences its hardl for any other team to qualify

[Pero Antic]

Yeah great season for olimpiakos as they had many problems at he beginnig and managed from outsiders to develop into favorite for the euroleague title which they won.

Greece should be very strong this summer but i think the difference between Greece, Lituhania, Macedonia and Russia is very small and a lot will depend on the daily form of the invidual players. On other side its a shame draw they made for this years olimpic b-ball tournement. I mean in group A you have teams like USA, France, Argentina,two top european teams i guess and Tunisia. In group B only SPain and the other european team which has to qualfy yet will be in alongside with Australia, Brazil, China, Great Britain.
Totally unbalanced groups and i do not understand this whole "lets push the great britain baskteball" thing.

They dont deserve to be there i know they where host but the tragedy is they only have a team because the olympics are going to be in london they formed this GB-team just a few years ago and only for that purpose and which will probably fell apart after this. But we know in Fiba its all about the money an easier way to qualify for the british guys for the 1/4finals dont exist. While My Macedonia will struggle to qualify for this tournement they already have their "deserved" place.

Same goes for Handball where the british federation is searching in newspapers for people who want to compete for them in their teams...i mean why??? there are a lot better teams who dont play in the olympics because the brits are to selfish to confess that they dont have teams to compete. sorry about the off -topic

[adamosmaki]

after watching olympiakos youngsters getting euroleugue this season i'm gonna have to say greece its the candidate for first place especially if sofo will play
Papanikolaou game by game was getting better and he got the point where was the euroleague final MVP. Sloukas is playing as if he has 10years experience and helps on scoring as well
Mantzaris also helps on scoring and he is a great defender alongside Papanikolaou. Printezis is by far this year most improved player in euroleague with double digits in most euroleague games this season. Those 4 are certainly gonna be in NT this summer and alongside spanoulis return ( olympiakos cornerstone and on euroleague's top 5 players and final four MVP ) and a potential Sofo return Greece is the better team on this tournament

[cardenales]

Ganso, If Larry make it to the team, it would be the death sentence to the puertorican team in their search to the olimpics. Also, Arroyo and Barea starting at the guards position.

[GustavoGanso]

Great to see Larry back with Puerto Rico NT jersey!

he will be very helpful, especially with A.D Vassallo out.

[Mojado]

Some names that I heard will be suiting up for Nigeria:
Oyedeji, Obasohan, the Aminu brothers Alade and Al Farouq, Umeh, Skinn, Archibong, Diogu.

Probably not gonna be in Venezuela:
Ime Udoka, Solomon Alabi, Festus Ezeli, Ekpe Udoh, Deji Akindele.

[PRSURF]

FBPR PRE SQUAD:


PG
Carlos Arroyo
JJ Barea
Miguel Alí Berdiel
Dennis Clemente
Andrés Rodríguez
Shabazz Napier(UConn)

SG
John Holland
David Huertas
Johwen Villegas
Larry Ayuso
Javier Mojica
Mike Rosario(Florida)

SF
Edwin Ubiles
Tomás Vázquez-Simmons
Alex Galindo
Kevin Young Morales(Kansas)
Carmelo Lee
Angel Daniel Vassallo

PF
Angel “Piwi” García
Nathan Peavy
Renaldo Balkman
Ramón Clemente
Devon Collier(OregonState)
Victor Davila(VirginiaTech)
Ricky Sánchez

C
Carlos “Yao” López (UNLV)
Matt Lopez(LaSalle)
Jorge Bryan Díaz(Nebraska)
PJ Ramos
Danny Santiago

_________________________
Puerto Rico will meet Macedonia in two game series 27 and 28 of june in Puerto Rico

[PRSURF]

Today the president of the Puerto Rico basketball federation will take a press conference.

[GustavoGanso]

Don't pay too much attention. Most of these guys are 8-15 yo old and all they know they want new Jordan's and Kleiza's signature. That's not a joke. If you looking for grown-up opinions better read interviews, official comments, blogs and stick too international forums. All Lithuanians BB websites are occupied by kids with some exceptions...

great know this, buddy.

i have some news of Brazil NT

the North-American Point Guard of Bauru Basketball, Larry Taylor will be declared officially able to play in olympics for Brazil this Monday..

Brazil will play a Super 4 in Sao Carlos with Greece, New Zealand (two teams of this Olympic Qualifier) and Tunisia... we will play against United States in Las Vegas July 16th (my birth date lol)

Magnano will announce the squad in next days i hope... 11 players will be guaranteed for sure:

Huertas and Larry
Barbosa, Alex Garcia, Marcelinho Machado, Marquinhos and Guilherme Giovannoni
Nene Hilario, Tiago Splitter, Rafael Hettsheimeir and Anderson Varejao

1 slot remaining... some other good names

PG: Raul Neto, Rafael Freire Luz, Scott Machado and Vitor Benite (Nezinho Dos Santos, the old one)

PF and C: Augusto Cesar Lima, Caio Torres, Murilo Becker (best player of our home league, but don't have international level in my opinion), Fab Melo and Vitor Faverani (playing well last games of Valencia in ACB)

let's wait for next weeks.

[Mindozas]

Don't pay too much attention. Most of these guys are 8-15 yo old and all they know they want new Jordan's and Kleiza's signature. That's not a joke. If you looking for grown-up opinions better read interviews, official comments, blogs and stick too international forums. All Lithuanians BB websites are occupied by kids with some exceptions...

Lately it's better to avoid those too (Lith section I mean). It's getting closer and closer to Lith bball sites level, basically thnx to only couple of persons (trolls maybe), but since there's no big activity (probably thnx to them again) - it's enough to make it almost unreadable, which is a shame in comparison with couple of years back, when it was really decent place for discussion

[Straight forward]

I saw some very racist comments of Lithuanian fans about Brazilian people and cities in a Lithuanian basketball website when I was searching for that news of last month... very very poor, we have excellent places, courts, security hotels to receive all basketball teams of olympics if necessary, people need stop to think they are offending not just the people who came here from Africa, but all the people from Europe, we have much europeans descendant living here which came here in last 300 years, as much as various european crountries! people need to study more! just saying!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_Brazil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Brazilian

Don't pay too much attention. Most of these guys are 8-15 yo old and all they know they want new Jordan's and Kleiza's signature. That's not a joke. If you looking for grown-up opinions better read interviews, official comments, blogs and stick too international forums. All Lithuanians BB websites are occupied by kids with some exceptions...

[GustavoGanso]

I saw some very racist comments of Lithuanian fans about Brazilian people and cities in a Lithuanian basketball website when I was searching for that news of last month... very very poor, we have excellent places, courts, security hotels to receive all basketball teams of olympics if necessary, people need stop to think they are offending not just the people who came here from Africa, but all the people from Europe, we have much europeans descendant living here which came here in last 300 years, as much as various european crountries! people need to study more! just saying!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_Brazil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Brazilian