By Konstantinos iliadis – Coach of Ioannina team
The 12th edition of the FIBA World Cup will be held in Greece for the 2nd time after 1995, this time on the courts of Heraklion in Crete from 27/6 until 5/7. The 16 best teams, based on last year’s continental championships, will compete with the ambition of conquering the top of the world, and at the same time this event will catch the attention of many coaches, scouters and teams from all over the planet.
The system of the tournament is as follows: 16 countries are divided into 4 groups of 4 teams, where after 3 games and based on the rankings of the groups, the teams advance to the knock out phase where the real tournament begins, as do the big battles on the road to the medal. Eurohoops presents to you the most important teams and the players on whom you have to focus.
USA (Sean Miller) 1st FIBA AMERICAS U18 CHAMPIONSHIP 2014
The 2013 World Champions who have won the gold in 7 out of 11 tournaments. They are coming to this tournament with several absentees that have either already registered for the draft (Johnson, Wislow, Turner) or are getting ready for their first college year and were key players in winning the U17 World Cup last year (Newman, Stone, Rabb).
The team they will be bringing is still the first favorite of the tournament. You have to have your attention focused on Brunson (1996) and Alonzo Trier (1996), a possible top scorer of the tournament, a “killer” who has infinite ways of scoring baskets and from any kind of distance. Unfortunately, in the absences we already knew about will be added Briscoe’s injury just a few days before the start of the tournament, a player who was expected to have a leading role and who remains to be seen what kind of impact he will have on the team.
TURKEY (Omer Ugurata) 1st EUROBASKET U18 2014
The Turks have won the last two U18 European Championships as well as the 2012 U16 championship and so they are coming to the World championship with a lot of ambitions.
A couple of stand out players are Furkan Korkmaz (1997) and Ugurlu (1996). From the tall guys, watch out for Egemen Guven (1996) at the ‘5’ position. The most important advantage is that this particular crop has acquired great chemistry, with clear roles and they have what winners are made of. They haven’t lost a lot of knockout games and they have proven on the court that they can manage different situations that arise during the game in order to reach the victory.