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    #1

    Hosts not qualifying

    A rare occurrence at major international tournaments, but happening now. The (men's) Basketball World Cup is being hosted by Manila, Okinawa and Jakarta. The last of these will not be seeing Indonesia play, however. They lost out in the play-offs. Imagine FIFA allowing ... well no, we can't.

    Basketball's not really my sport (the only time I played it was as an EFL teacher and when I did what I thought were cool Harlem Globetrotter moves all the students shouted "travelling!", which I then had to go home and look up). But the mix of nations is quite something. South Sudan beat China.

    In a gift to headline-writers, the USA play Jordan next.
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    #2
    The massive news in this tournament so far was France, who were widely thought to be medal contenders, crashing out in the group stages after getting tonked by Canada and blowing a 12 point fourth quarter lead to a Latvian team who were missing their only notable NBA player.

    South Sudan have been competitive on a continental level since independence. Their result was not a shock.

    Basketball has become the most popular sport in the Philippines by some distance.

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      #3
      Basketball is huge in the Philippines, it’s quite possibly the only country in the world where basketball is legitimately the national sport. Certainly the only I can think of off the top of my head. Astonishingly, they have never produced an NBA player; yes the average Filipino man is quite short (about 163 cm), but it is not a small country with over 100 million people.

      Apparently the local explanation is the lack of height means any Filipino player nearing the 2m mark is just so dominant in the air that their fundamentals suffer, so they’re ill-prepared for the demands of US basketball. A couple of Filipinos are finding their way into D1 programmes and I think there’s a real push to get a Filipino into the NBA, so we might see one before too long although it’s likely he’ll have gone to high school in the USA to prepare him for collegiate and pro hoops.

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        #4
        Originally posted by Flynnie View Post



        Basketball is huge in the Philippines, it’s quite possibly the only country in the world where basketball is legitimately the national sport.

        Lithuania too.

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          #5
          The unrelenting bulldozer of TV money and advertising has flattened a lot of the US' traditional sports culture. On the surface, it seems like the NFL and NCAA football are hegemons.

          To some extent they are, but below the surface, a lot of the traditional regional differences are still there. For example, once you get north or east of about Scranton, interest in gridiron drops off noticeably compared to the western part of PA or the rest of the rustbelt.

          And, of course, basketball is the most popular sport in urban areas as well as very rural areas that, historically, could not put together enough boys to play 11-on-11 football. (As portrayed in Hoosiers)

          It's also grown to have a special status in the Black community, especially people who identify as part of the hip-hop culture.

          I find basketball generally dull and there are some aspects of it I find really irritating, but I generally enjoy listening to people who are passionate about it. "Best player I ever saw was old Froggy Johnson play for St. Mary's against Our Lady of Eternal Bleeding in 1974 at the old Armory..." that kind of thing.
          Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 29-08-2023, 16:53.

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            #6
            I remember that when London was awarded the 2012 Olympics, basketball was the only team sport in which Britain didn't get a place automatically, with FIBA requiring the team to demonstrate that they could achieve a minimum standard (their entry was approved after qualifying for the Eurobasket finals).

            The 1934 FIFA World Cup was the first which required teams to qualify. This included the hosts, Italy, who beat Greece 4-0. FIFA changed the rules so that hosts qualified automatically from 1938 onwards.

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              #7
              The final will be Germany vs Serbia (without Jokic).

              My impression is that the US was mostly using this as a tryout for the Olympic team, so it's not a terrible disappointment, but it is not not a disappointment.

              https://www.theringer.com/nba/2023/9...fiba-world-cup

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                #8
                I think it's actually rude if the host country don't get to enter a team. Furthermore, it always used to be the case that just out of politeness the demonstably crap hosts got to at least the semi-finals. Like Chile in 1962, or England four years later.

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                  #9
                  Germany won it (not breaking news).

                  This must be the largest gap in history between the standing of Germany's (men's) basketball and football teams (citation not needed).

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