On the 4th day of the World Basketball championship, Turkish team will face Greece tonight at 2100 Turkish time. Turkish team who won their first 2 games are expected to advance to the next round by taking the 1st place in group stage if they win tonight´s game as well.

Quoted from: here

That´s great news. Grease and Amorico are two strong sides. Brozil could become a world power in the near future. I also like Sorbia but we saw what happened to Crowshuh maybe the Balkon school is beginning to lose its power.

What about Itolia and Spanie ? Aren´t these two countries supposed to be major sides in this game. Jermanie is also strong but when you leave out Dirk Novitzky they become an average team.

Can anyone comment on the general lack of interest and continued low achiever status of Englond National Basketball Tean.

Nice, but you should be persistent with those.

When I attended primary school in the 1960s, the boys played football and cricket whilst the girls played netball and stoolball.  Boys and girls together played shinty and we had a mixed rounders team.

During my years (11 - 18) at Secondary school we played netball and hockey during the Autumn and Winter then rounders and tennis during the remaining part of the year.  In addition, we participated in athletics during the summer term.  Oh . . . and the last one to get changed for Physical Education lessons had to run round the small quarry that was in the school´s grounds.  It was a girls only school and the boys were down at the other end of a long road.  As far as I know they played tennis and had athletics as we did, with the addition of cricket and in the Autumn and Winter they played football and rugby.

As a teenager, out of school, I concentrated on badminton, playing in local leagues then added squash as an adult.

In my experience, in those days basketball wasn´t a sport that was played extensively. I know it´s more popular nowadays, but I´m not sure to what extent.  Personally, it doesn´t interest me.  I may be wrong but, IMO, basketball will never attract the level of interest in the UK that it has in some other countries. Perhaps it´s one of those sports that just doesn´t getting much government funding (if any), I don´t know.  I suppose every country has its favourites and its minority sports.   

My friend has five children, all in their teens and they are all keen on sports.  She is forever driving them to one sports venue or another.  Their interests are football, rugby union, ice hockey and swimming and they participate at a very good competitive level.

Ooooh, all this talk of sport from my childhood . . . reminds me of my most vivid sporting memory.  I was ten years old and in my school´s mixed rounders team.  We had travelled eight miles, to another school, for a match.  We were in to bat and Richard Astin was ready to receive the ball.  He was left handed and he absolutely ´slogged´ the ball . . . it went over the hedge, over the main road and over the next hedge, into the field across the road . . . Richard Astin . . . my idol!!  He was also a superb footballer, sprinter and artist.

Basketball is the most popular sports in some countries (ex: Greece and probably Serbia, Lithuania etc)

Yes, I´m sure it is.  Different countries have different sporting preferences.

Another sport I followed from being a teenager was Rally Driving.  Rally driving often took place during the night, on main roads and narrow country roads.  I´ve spent many a night sat up a tree with a flask of hot coffee.

Greece such a row team, in defence palyers can do anything, people call it good defence and professionalism. Also they have a good lobby so the latest hearsays they are now pressuring FIBA to appoint same referee in Puerto Rico match, Carl Jungebrand. 

si++ by the way what do you think about organization? Imo it is a fiasco so far started with opening ceremony, I was thinking if this organization taking place in Greece, certainly sports with politics do not go well, then national anthems of some teams could not be played, and then problems on score boards lately...

Bravoo Turkey Congratulations

They´ve played wonderful! It was a great match! We did 3 at 3! Our hearts are with players and Türkiye!

TR have beaten Greece 76 to 65. Ersan was superb, referee was Jungebrant and guess what? He was outrageous.

Our guys played very well this evening (vs Greece) It was very joyful to watch Ersan and Omer´s spectecular moves.

I am hopeful for final four...

Go guys...

There is no final four but semifinal , TR had a great chance to finish the group in the 1st position...

yeah you´re right...for the semi final...

After the game, they said that it was the first win in last 30 years. Incredible, we couldn´t beat Greece in last 30 years until this game?

Greeks do it again and lose to Russia to avoid matching up with Spain in the next round. Turkish coach Bogdan Tanjevic was present during the game Greece-Russia yesterday and thought it was an aimed defeat of Greeks. Such that he had an argument with Greek Player Bourousis after he kicked an ad board saying "there is no need for theater here".

Source: here

Edit:

But it didn´t go as they planned and we will see Greece-Spain match in the next round.

Cheerleaders absent for Turkey matches at World Basketball Championships

The absence of scantily clad female cheerleaders at recent World Championship basketball matches involving host nation Turkey has raised eyebrows in the overwhelmingly Muslim but officially secular nation.

.....

Troupes of energetic cheerleaders have entertained the crowds at matches involving other teams in the tournament, but no dancers appeared during Turkey´s match against Greece on Tuesday nor their match against Russia on Sunday.

The Russia match was attended by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his wife, who wears the Muslim headscarf.

"Are cheerleaders not allowed for Turks?" asked news website Gazeteport on Wednesday.

..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/s...hampionships.html

====

Below is a Turkish source: it says ´instead of cheerleaders, Bulent Arinc , who is Deputy Prime minister in the government, will be reading poetry during the breaks for motivation´

http://www.zaytung.com/haberdetay.asp?newsid=37348

Who´s next???

We´re going to play with Slovenia in Istanbul on 8th of September, at 21:00

I rather wait for the end of the dream on the 12th of September

The game against France will be their (Turks´ last? Turkey had organised Euro 2001 in İstanbul and made it to Final game then. This time we have a similar atmosphere here. This time we played in Sinan Erdem hall which, compared to Abdi İpekçi, is larger, more modern, a little more sanitized but less pressure felt though it was still difficult when fifteen thousand fans singing the national anthem in synch. If the Turkish players find themselves in a tense in the game against Slovenia in the 3rd quarter or last, the support may be increased tenfold.
Turkey has something of France 98 in football. If nothing goes wrong, they can aim high. The title? It does not seem impossible, but it´s far.

Quoted from: here

After watching the Russian team top the New Zealand team last night it has now been clear that French team did also let NZ team easily beat them so as not to face up the Greek team and instead preferred the Turkish team but their plan didn´t work out as they expected either.

Actually French´s plan was to face with Russia, they can manage it if NZ beat them less than 12 point difference, France tried this in last period very hard but in last 20 seconds NZ scored 7 points with two extraordinary 3 point shot and after that their plan failed simply.

Argantina - Brasil match was very well however, Serbia - Spain match was awesome. I was expecting Spain to win but Serbia was so much concantrated on the match. 

Slovenia - Turkey match will begin in ten minutes. This match will be hard and fine and I guess Turkey will win at the end. Semi final with Serbia will be harder but i guess Turkey is able to win that match too. I really wonder the result of Turkey - USA final. 

Afterall, despite the lack of many star players, i watch a wonderful tournement nowadays. 

After watching the Turkish team beat Slovenia, I have started to believe that we may make our way into the final (Slavica would disagree for sure) and win the championship as well. But first we need to pass Serbia. Let´s wait and see.

Everything may happen... Serbian national team has been "raised from ashes" by our coach Duda Ivković and reaching semifinale is alraedy a success. Of course, we also hope to play in final match and win the championship, but we must consider one more fact – Türkiye will have one player more, audience, and advantage of the host. So, let the better win

Anyway, even if  Türkiye win, I won´t suffer much, because not only your coach, Bogdan Tanjević, an excellent and experienced expert, is a Serbian, but also several of "12 Dev Adam" - Hedo Türkoğlu, Semih Erden, Mirsad Türkcan, Mehmet Okur (I´m not sure if they all play in recent national team) – have their origins in Srbia/Montenegro

I´m an avid basketball fan here in usa. In my opinion, I think international basketball players are definitely leading the teams here and they are some of the toughest players in the world.  Think about it, they played in teams around the world and had to play under different coaches and learn different tactics, deal with language barriers and cultures, overcome many obstacles and still somehow get out on the floor and play hard!  My local team, has had some excellent international  players and now we will see Hedo here soon....  Much respect to all the teams in FIBA, win or lose, they worked hard to get to the finals.. GO TURKEY!

I´ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I´ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I´ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I´ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. -

Michael Jordan

Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen. -

Michael Jordan

Semih and Hidayet are now playing for the current national team. Mirsad quitted to play for national team and afaik Mehmet has an injury. Lots of bosniak origin Turkish citizens playing in Turkish basketball league. I think they were born to play basketball.

 Yeap! There must be something in the air! 

And the ground must be watery 

Tomorrow will be the day of sports At 17.00 Turkey - Greece Volleyball Man, At 19.00 USA - Lithuania also some football super legue matches for football funs and at 21.00 Turkey - Serbia. 

This weekend really is a bayram

Right! 8 years ago Serbia came from nothing and win the championship. 4 years ago you were literally absent. And now you have a completely new team of youngsters and have hopes to win it again.

Anyway, I admire your people´s ability for basketbal.

I wathed the first leg of the volleyball game last week. We really outperformed Greece. We will probably pass them this time as well.

Slavica,

Armegon is referring to a Turkish saying we use to talk about big tall guys:

"Sulak yerde büyümüş" = "He must have grown up somewhere with much of water supply"

Just out of curiosity, I have found some data for average male height here:

Stats between 2006-2008

Metric System Version:

1)Average Height by Country (Youth:20-30 years)
Country/Average Male Height (cm)/population

Netherlands 184,8 16318199
Iceland 181,5 319355
Denmark 181,1 5413392
Czech Republic 180,8 10246178
Slovenia 180,3 2007711
Germany 180,3 82424609
Norway 180,3 4737171
Sweden 180,0 8986400
Croatia 180,0 4496869
Finland 180,0 5214512
Luxembourg 179,9 486006
Estonia 179,6 1307605
Austria 179,2 8174762
Australia 179,0 19913144
Serbia 178,5 10159046
Poland 178,3 38626349
Switzerland 178,1 7450867
Belgium 178,0 10348276
Greece 177,9 10647529
United Kingdom 177,8 60270708
United States 177,6 293027571
New Zealand 177,5 3993817
Hungary 177,3 10106017
Ireland 177,0 3969558
Ukraine 176,5 47732079
Canada 176,3 32507874
Lithuania 176,3 3565205
Russia 176,2 143782338
Israel 176,2 7112359
Lebanon 176,2 3777218
Turkey 176,1 68893918
France 176,0 60424213
Uzbekistan 175,4 26410416
Spain 175,0 40280780
Senegal 175,0 10852147
Italy 174,8 58057477
Mali 174,5 12324029
Jamaica 174,3 2804332
South Korea 174,2 48598175
Romania 174,0 22355551
Azerbaijan 174,0 8177717
Uruguay 173,7 3399237
Portugal 173,5 10524145
Argentina 173,5 39144753
Iran 173,4 67503205
Syria 173,0 18016874
Taiwan 172,7 22920946
Morocco 172,7 32209101
Egypt 172,3 76117421
Tunisia 172,3 9974722
Algeria 172,2 32129324
Côte d´Ivoire 172,1 18373060
Japan 172,1 127333002
Hong Kong 172,1 7210505
South Africa 172,0 42718530
Gambia 172,0 1735464
China 171,8 1298847624
Cameroon 171,6 16063678
Ghana 171,5 23382848
Brazil 171,3 184101109
Colombia 171,2 42310775
Chile 171,0 15823957
Singapore 170,8 4353893
Venezuela 170,5 23542649
Paraguay 170,5 6191368
Pakistan 169,3 159196336
Mexico 169,2 104959594
Thailand 169,0 64865523
Mongolia 168,8 2751314
Malaysia 168,5 23522482
Sri Lanka 168,0 20064776
Malawi 168,0 13931831
Bahrain 167,6 718306
Iraq 167,4 25374691
Nigeria 167,0 138283240
Peru 166,3 27544305
North Korea 166,1 22697553
Vietnam 165,0 82689518
India 164,5 1065070607
Philippines 164,2 86241697
Indonesia 163,0 238452952
Cambodia 162,5 13363421

Yes, I supposed so, although I didn´t know the exact saying. We have the similar saying: "He grows as from water" for someone who grows fast 

Anyway, I don´t think the hight is crucial for good basketball players (data you´ve posted prove that). Serbia and ex-Yugoslavia (which used be one of the best counties in basketaball and whose direct successor, considered by FIBA, is Serbia) had many excellent and world famous basketball players who were only 180-190 cm. Seems that there really IS something in the air of some countries, when you consider, as for example, population, and results in some sports, let´s say basketball. It is easy for Russia, to find "12 Dev Adam" among 150 million people, but look at Lithuania, with only 3,5 million, they are as good as Russians, and probably better. I won´t mention Serbia and its 10 million  .

TÜRKİYE, ANKARA, FIBA  WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 2010
BASKETBALL
WORLD BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
WORLD BASKETBALL CUP
11.09.2010
TÜRKİYE       : 83
SIRBİSTAN    : 82
Bravo TÜRKİYE!
GREAT TÜRKİYE!
TÜRKİYE IS COMING FOR  THE NEW WORLD CHAMPION
THE FINAL MATCH = TÜRKİYE - USA

Greetings from ANKARA, 23.45

Congratulations 

And good luck tomorrow...

Türkiye uzmansın

last 20 seconds of the match -->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8XShScUOyU

This last game was a good answer to those scums who flashed three finger chetnik salutes throughout the game. I hope they got that this is not Serbia and we are not Bosnians.

Lucky, the referees were not Dutch....

Thank you Slavica,

It was a great achievement for us. We never have been so successful in team sports. This is the greatest of all for us so far. It will be even greater if we can win tonight as well. I hope USA will create less problems for us tonight.

I jumped and shouted for win after the last basket and thought we won the game then we noticed that there was still 0.5 secs to go. I was worried about it because I saw teams scoring 3 points when they were 2 down and there was 0.2 secs to go. Semih´s block means to much for our achievement.

I don´t know where you got this from but I have my doubts about these figures. When I applied for voluntary/compulsory military service, I went through a health check up which included weight and height measurements. The soldier in charge of the measurements had fixed the meter at 173cms. Being too lazy to adjust for every single person he would write a few centimeters up or down. That being the standard, I wouldn´t be surprized if the entire Turkish army measured at a standard 173cms.

Source was given as a link in si++´s post if you did care.

Well, the link is there. I might have said, "where did they get these figures..." Nobody ever measured me or anyone in my family. I just had to bow down my head and passed under it.

Here is the source that si++ posted http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ase/116/3/116_191/_html

Now you can go and ask them how dare they did not measure your family.

This has been the greatest achievement by a Turkish team so far in a team sport.

Standings:

1. ABD (USA)
2. Türkiye
3. Litvanya (Lithuania)
4. Sırbistan (Serbia)
5. Arjantin (Argentina)
6. İspanya (Spain)
7. Rusya (Russia)
8. Slovenya (Slovenia)
9. Brezilya (Brasil)
10. Avustralya (Australia)
11. Yunanistan (Greece)
12. Yeni Zelanda (New Zeeland)
13. Fransa (France)
14. Hırvatistan (Croatia)
15. Angola
16. Çin Halk Cumhuriyeti (China)
17. Almanya (Germany)
18. Porto Riko (Porto Rico)
19. İran
20. Lübnan (Lebanon)
21. Fildişi Sahili (Ivory Coast)
22. Kanada (Canada)
23. Ürdün (Jordan)
24. Tunus (Tunesia)

Source: here

Nobody asks me about my vote but they still predict the results very closely before the elections. haven´t you heard of "central limit theorem"? That´s what they are all based on.