IN T' NET
An occasional Basketball Diary ... (from Yorkshire, in case tha'd not noticed)
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19/07/05
About time I revived the Diary - there are so many things happening at this time of year that it's not always possible to produce a full page about each, and this is an ideal place to give brief details, and thoughts.
The regularity of Diary entries will depend on a good number of things, such as whether there's anything worth recording ... and how soon we manage to finish the complete redecoration of the house, that seems to have been going on for years (but which has actually only been in progress for months!).
Anyway, one item that's well worth mentioning here is the difficulty of obtaining regular, detailed information on European competitions.
A classic case in point is the European Under-18 Championships, currently in progress. The FIBA Europe website (which depends on receiving results from the various venues) tends to be at least 24 hours behind, and even more at weekends, when they appear to take a break. Until late last night, for instance, they still didn't have the Netherlands v Ireland result posted!
Fortunately I was able to find a Slovakian website dedicated to Division B (in which England are competing), so I was able to keep up with the results from there - though sometimes I had to interpolate results when they got the Table wrong, such as the occasion when England played Ireland, but ended up with less "points scored" than they had before the game! Still, it was good to be able to post the results before FIBA!
The next problem, at the end of the Preliminary Round, was that FIBA, while giving a fixture schedule (G1 v G2 etc), didn't give any explanation of how teams qualified to be in Pools G, H and I.
I must admit to a fair degree of satisfaction in having successfully interpreted how the system worked, so I'm now transferring that information here (from the Results' page):
The top two in each Group qualify for the quarter final stages.
The other nine play off for places 9 to 17.
As I understand it: The three non-quarter finalists with the best records (Luxembourg, 2&2; Romania 2&1; Sweden 1&2) become teams G1, H1, I1; The next-best three (Slovakia, FYROM, England) become G2, H2, I2; The worst three (Ireland, Czech Republic, Estonia) become G3, H3, I3.
Groups G, H and I each play a round-robin series.
The three winners of these groups become Group J, playing a round-robin for 9th to 11th;
The three second placed teams become Group K, playing ... 12th to 14th;
The three third-placed teams become Group L ... 15th to 17th.
The only bit I didn't quite work out (and still don't understand) is how they decided which teams to place in "G", which in "H" and which in "I".
I thought that England would be in Group I, along with Estonia and Sweden ... but it turns out to be Group G, with Romania instead of Sweden.
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