Olympic Qualifying Tournaments got under way. There are 4 of them I think? Winners get the last spots in Paris. Very odd way to do this no doubt.
Croatia up 15 early on Slovenia. Luka not playing great, I imagine right after a finals where he looked not 100% they’re not gonna look their best
The Greece Tournament is tough. Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Domincan Republic.
Olivier Nkamhoua playing with Finland, nice to see he’s healthy again.
Old friend Youssef Khayat is with Lebanon against Spain today (right now).
Tum Tum (who is coaching Youssef) and Youssef playing in the same qualifier is objectively hilarious.
That is very funny. Also looks like Youssef started
VJ Edgecombe with 20 points against Finland. Going to be interesting to see how he’ll play in the FIBA qualifying group for the next couple of games. His athleticism absolutely popped on the court.
With the win over Finland they should win their group. Will come down to a winner takes all vs. Spain in Spain.
It’s funny to me that they do basketball qualifiers so close to the Olympics. By the time these tournaments are done, there will only be 3 weeks before the games start.
I guess it’s not that dissimilar to the other sports that did end of June Olympic qualifiers, but like 8 other teams have been qualified for almost a year now.
I guess it’s a necessity because the WC is now the year before that and Euros are the year before that. So unless you make the WC the only way to qualify or make the continental ones 2 years out the way, you’re stuck with these strange 6 team tournaments
And Dusty let him get away. First chunk in the armor for ole Dustbuster
I know that this rant is in frustration over last season’s dismal showing (of which I am TOTALLY OVER), but we couldn’t find a few more minutes for Khayat in that lost campaign? I know that he didn’t look great when he did get off the bench, but (as I am sure that I probably said to myself when I didn’t get into a game in which my team got crushed) he wasn’t a lot worse than what we were putting on the floor most of the time, was he? We weren’t trying preserve a redshirt, were we?
That is a question for Juwan
Cameroon really could have used Embiid’s help today. Lost a tight one to Vucevic and Montenegro.
Ah now I’m seeing super fun Khayat/juwan discourse on twitter. So glad it’s back
https://x.com/fiba/status/1808531478055198830?s=46&t=OMxEAgg62bsLI0mWenDZ7w
Going to be a lot of fun to watch. Also the way Spain looked against Lebanon I think Bahamas could pull it out
Edgecomb was just the leading scorer for Bahamas over Buddy Hield an Deandre Ayton. That’s crazy
Elsewhere, New Zealand just beat Croatia, which opens up a chance for Slovenia to advance if they can beat New Zealand by 29 points.
Dominican Republic plays Greece in 12 minutes which will decide the other half of that tournament. Should be a good one. Actually looks like no KAT for DR so maybe not
Definitely hard to understand. On his rare outings for us he looked completely overwhelmed … was it just nerves? Did he just need more minutes to get settled down?
Edgecombe is projected as a top 5 pick. The '25 draft class is going to be stacked at the top. Great time to tank for the lottery pick.
He also could have just had a hot shooting game in a game that he scored most all of his points well after the game was already decided. He had 7 points in the first 19:30 of the game. The rest were all when there was a 20+ point lead late in the game
Other Michigan news, it looks like Iggy is not on the Lithuania team which is interesting. He was on the WC team and played a bit. He didn’t play a ton this year for his club though so maybe they think he’s out of form, plus he asked out at Zalgris which is the premier Lithuanian team.