Teams:
China (FIBA-Asia 2nd place)
Turkey (host)
Russia (Wild card)
Puerto Rico (FIBA-Americas 2nd place)
Cote d'Ivoire (FIBA-Africa 2nd place)
Greece (FIBA-Europe 3rd place)
Group C is the hardest group to predict in my opinion. Greece is an experienced and tough team. They play a suffocating defense and run a solid pick and roll (as the US found out the hard way in 2006). Without former Euroleage MVP and experienced vet Theodoros Paploukas at the point, they don't have a pure point guard and that could pase a problem in the latter stages of the tournament. Puerto Rico has one of the most talented guard tandems in flashy point guard Carlos Arroyo and Juan Jose Barea, but all the guards are under 6'3. Peter John Ramos is a physical presence in the middle and the 7'3 center will be one of the best centers in the tournament. The team's problem is its' inconsistency, making it hard to predict. Turkey, being the host, will have a homecourt advantage throughout, but don't overlook the talent they have. Milwaukee Buck F Ersan Ilyasova has been developing quite nicely not only down low, but as a 3 pt threat. Engin Atsur is also a good 3 pt threat. At Eurobasket 09, he averaged only 16 minutes in 6 games but 6 or his 7 made field goal attempts were threes. The teams weakness is at the guard position, where they don't have a ture playmaker. Russia is super hard to predict. They won Eurobasket in '07 but in the '08 Olympics, they didn't even make it to the quaterfinals (record 1-4). It'll be a hard road again because they will not have superstar Andrei Kirilenko, leading scorer from last year Kelly McCarty or naturalized PG JR Holden. 6'9 F Victor Khryapa is coming off a 2010 Russia Cup MVP, but the team cannot rely solely on him. Timofey Mozgov was a good find at last years Eurobasket and will definately be near the top of the teams scoring and rebounding averages. Their best guards are Vitaly Fridzon, Sergei Bykov and Anton Ponkrashov, but they are not good enough to make Russia a serious contender. China is definately in a rebuilding stage and some newer faces will emerge. They will be led by 7-footer Yi Jianlian, who has a nice baseline jumper and was the third leading scorer at FIBA-Asia last year (averaged 18.3 ppg, 10.4 rebounds). As in the past, the team's strength will be its bigs down low. Grizzled vet Liu Wei still hold the PG position, but he will have trouble keeping up with the likes of Carlos Arroyo and other quick athletic guards. At MSG in New York City, China did not impress and were blown out by the US and by Puerto Rico. Cote d'Ivoire was one of the pleasant suprises at the 2009 FIBA-Africa championship by almost not making and then upsetting Senegal and Cameroon, losing in the gold medal match to perennial champion Angola. They had the fifth best offense and had the second most steals behind Congo. Pape-Philippe Amagou will be their best scorer and player (he made the FIBA-Africa Championship First team). He averaged 11 points per game and had a very good 2:1 assist-turnover ratio. 6'11 PF Mohamed Kone will be their leading rebounder (8.3 average last year at FIBA-Africa, good for 6th along with 10.2 points). Despite that, they will have trouble scoring (5th in Africa is not good enough at the world level) and stopping the scoring (73.1 ppg, outside of top 5). If Angola has trouble scoring and playing defense at times on the world level, then the Cote d'Ivoire has some work to do.
Predictions:
Greece 5-0
Puerto Rico 4-1
Turkey 3-2
Russia 2-3
China 1-4
Cote d'Ivoire 0-5
more to come...
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