10 Things You Need to Know About EuroBasket 2007

It's been five days since EuroBasket 2007 ended in Spain, but the tournament is worth revisiting. Sixteen teams squared off in the two-week long competition creating thousands of basketball memories in the process. Since your brain is too crammed with ATM pin numbers, email passwords and phone numbers as it is, I've taken the liberty to shrink everything that went down into a succinct top 10 list to cram into your hippocampus.

1. Approximately five percent of the NBA played in it.

With the NBA season still nearly six weeks away, 24 of the 450 or so players in the league congregated for EuroBasket. Basically, that's the equivalent of a really good summer barbeque party. Only it lasted for two weeks, which is even better. Here's a nice picture guide as to who was there. The 24 players were spread out over 10 countries: France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey.

2. Russia won it.

As basketball history will show you, a lot of times what decides who wins and who loses is pretty simple. Whichever team has the best player out of the 10 men out on the court has a decided advantage for the most part. Well, the best player at EuroBasket was Utah's Andrei Kirilenko. In the semifinals, Russia was tied with Lithuania in the third quarter after surrending a 19-point lead, but AK-7, (No. 47 isn't eligible in Europe), scored six straight and then had a block on defense to give teammate J.R. Holden an open look, pushing Russia's lead to eight. His line against Lithuania read 29 points, eight rebounds, three steals and three blocks and his team won 86-74.

The championship was an even better game as Holden hit a jumper with 2.1 seconds left to secure the 60-59 win for Russia over Spain. Kirilenko scored a game-high 17 points to go with five rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block. Fellow Russian Victor Khryapa, of the Chicago Bulls, chipped in seven points, 12 rebounds and three steals in the title game.
"It is the best achievement in my professional career," Kirilenko told NBA.com's John Hareas. "We played as a team. We really deserved that win."

3. Spain didn’t.

When you add up the facts that Spain was coming off the 2006 FIBA World Championship, playing in its home country and boasting five NBA players on its roster, its no surprise that they were the prohibitive favorites to win EuroBasket. Only, they didn't. The tournament didn't start well for them when they were shocked by Croatia, 85-84 in the preliminary round. Pau Gasol, Jose Calderon, Jorge Garbajosa, Sergio Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Navarro and Co. righted the Santa Maria, if you will, and tore through the qualifying round -- including a dismantling of Russia, who were undefeated at the time. In the quarterfinals Spain really took it to Dirk Nowitzki and Germany, holding Dirk to just 11 points and won easily, 83-55. Next Spain knocked off the defending EuroBasket Champions, Greece, in the semifinals, but in the championship, Holden's shot dashed their title dreams.

4. The “International Triple Crown” competed in it.

Last season an unprecedented string of events occurred in the NBA. It started in June of 2006 when the Raptors selected Italy-native Andrea Bargnani with the No. 1 pick. The next step was Germany-born Dirk Nowitzki winning the Maurice Podoloff Trophy as the league's MVP. The finale was Frenchman Tony Parker being named MVP of The Finals. Here at the league we refer to the troika of events as the "International Triple Crown." All three jewels in the crown competed in EuroBasket. Bargnani paired with Golden State rookie Marco Belinelli to take Italy to the qualifying round before bowing out to Nowitzki and Germany. Nowitzki and Germany finished fourth, losing in the Bronze medal game. Parker joined the Suns' Boris Diaw, the Lakers' Ronny Turiaf and the Nuggets' Yakhouba Diawara on France and made it to the qualifying round.

5. Greece had a comeback for the ages.

You know how you never forget a great game? Remember last season's D-II NCAA National Championship Game in basketball or Boise St. pulling off that bowl game miracle? That was Greece against Slovenia in the quarterfinals. The same team that upset the U.S. in the 2006 FIBA Worlds came back from 12 points down with less than three minutes remaning against Rasho Nesterovic's squad. "Slovenia played more intelligent than we did and better than us for 39 minutes," said Greece's Theo Papaloukas whose layup with 6.7 seconds remaining capped his team's rally and secured the 63-62 victory. "But we played better in the last minute. We had no chioce."

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source: NBA.com