FIBA to use modified draw for bracketing

MANILA, Philippines - Geographical and quality principles will be applied to determine the brackets in the three Olympic qualifying tournaments, one of which Manila will host, on July 4-10 with the modified draw set at the FIBA House of Basketball in Mies, a 10-minute drive from Geneva, tomorrow.

The House of Basketball is a four-storey building shaped like a hand with a steel structure designed after a woven hoop net. It is where FIBA holds office. The building also has an exhibition hall that features the Hall of Fame and the Pedro Ferrandiz Library with over 7,000 publications on basketball in over 20 languages, a conference center and a restaurant. Construction was started in December 2010 and completed in February 2013.

FIBA director of communications Patrick Koller said the draw will be held at 6:30 p.m., Swiss time, with global live streaming provided. The draw procedure will be determined as soon as the list of 18 participating teams is finalized.

Manila, Turin in Italy and Belgrade in Serbia were previously picked to host the three Olympic qualifiers where only the winners will advance to book the last tickets to Rio de Janeiro. “I’m happy for the Filipinos,” said Koller. “I’m sure that it will be a great event with a lot of passion.”

An open draw will not be conducted to avoid an imbalance of the competition with eight countries from Europe, three each from the Americas, Africa and Asia and one from Oceania. The 18 countries will be split six into each bracket. The format for each tournament will involve dividing the six countries into two groups of three where group mates play each other once in the preliminaries then the top two finishers move up the crossover knockout semifinals and the survivors play for a slot in Rio. The tournament will take only five playing days to finish.

The FIBA world rankings of the 18 participating countries are No. 5 France, No. 6 Serbia, No. 8 Turkey, No. 10 Greece, No. 12 Croatia, No. 15 Angola, No. 16 Puerto Rico, No. 17 Iran, No. 19 Mexico, No. 21 New Zealand, No. 23 Tunisia, No. 26 Canada, No. 28 Philippines, No. 31 Senegal, joint No. 35 Italy and Latvia, No. 42 Czech Republic and No. 48 Japan.

Since the Philippines, Italy and Serbia were among the 15 seeds in the Olympic qualifiers, FIBA invited replacements “in line with their FIBA world ranking and the final standings of the 2015 continental championships.” Latvia, Croatia and Turkey were picked to fill in the vacant slots. Latvia and Croatia were the next highest finishers in last year’s EuroBasket after Spain, Lithuania, France, Serbia, Greece, Italy and the Czech Republic. Spain and Lithuania qualified for the Rio Olympics by virtue of their 1-2 finish in EuroBasket while the third to seventh placers made it as Olympic qualifying seeds. That left the door open for No. 8 Latvia and No. 9 Croatia.

With the Philippines as host, a slot was opened for Asia but the next highest finisher Lebanon was rejected by FIBA because “it is currently not in good standing with FIBA Asia,” according to Koller. Lebanon is ranked No. 43 in the world and finished fifth in the last FIBA Asia Championships in Changsha. Because Lebanon was struck out, FIBA decided to invite world No. 8 Turkey even if the national team wound up a lowly No. 14 in the last EuroBasket and doesn’t compete in FIBA Asia.

Of FIBA’s top 10 in the world, only No. 7 Russia will not be involved in the Rio Olympics. Already qualified for Rio are No. 1 USA for winning the FIBA World Cup in Spain in 2014, No. 2 Spain and No. 3 Lithuania for finishing 1-2 at the EuroBasket last year, No. 4 Argentina for placing No. 2 in last year’s FIBA Americas Championships and No. 9 Brazil for hosting the event. Playing in the Olympic qualifiers are No. 5 France, No. 6 Serbia, No. 8 Turkey and No. 10 Greece.

So far, nine teams are booked to play in Rio – the US, FIBA Americas champion Venezuela and runner-up Argentina, FIBA Africa champion Nigeria, FIBA Asia champion China, EuroBasket champion Spain and runner-up Lithuania, Oceania champion Australia and host Brazil. The three remaining tickets will be awarded to the winners of each Olympic qualifier.

Turkey was a justifiable entry to the Olympic qualifiers. The national team wound up second at the 2010 FIBA World Cup. It beat New Zealand, 76-73, Finland, 77-73, and Australia, 65-64, at the 2014 World Cup and advanced to the quarterfinals where the national team was ambushed by France, 76-53. At the EuroBasket last year, Turkey downed Italy, 89-87, Germany, 80-75 and Iceland, 111-102 in overtime.

Turkey’s key players are the NBA’s 7-0 Omer Asik of New Orleans, 6-11 Enes Kanter of Oklahoma City, 6-10 Ersan Ilyasova of Detroit and 6-9 Furkan Aldemir of Philadelphia. Long-time national player and 15-year NBA veteran Hedo Turkoglu retired in 2014. Croatia beat the Philippines, 81-78, in overtime at the 2014 FIBA World Cup and was sixth at the 2008 Olympics. Croatia’s top guns include 7-1 Ante Tomic, naturalized player Dontaye Draper of the College of Charleston and three NBA players – 6-7 Mario Hezonja of Orlando, 6-7 Bojan Bogdanovic of Brooklyn and 6-10 Damjan Rudez of Minnesota.