VALENCIA (Jeff Taylor's Eurovision) - Nothing makes a basketball tournament better than parity.

Any side can win or lose against any opponent.

There has been a good dose of it in Romania and Hungary at the 20-team EuroBasket Women, an event that will send one team to the Rio de Janeiro Games and four others to the 2016 FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

There have been upsets, comebacks, overtime games, buzzer beaters, resurrections.

A team is lucky one day and unlucky 48 hours hour.

Tempers have flared and a coach, Ekrem Memnum, has been ejected.

Memnum, the excellent Turkey boss, took the punishment that was meted out in a loss to Belarus in stride and even joked about his temperament in a post-game press conference several days later.

"I'm an angry man," he said with a grin.

The games I've watched in person have been in Oradea, Romania, and Debrecen, Hungary.

I'll never forget the heartbreak and frustration that Italy endured after an overtime defeat to Belarus on Day 1.

Look at what happened at the end of regulation.

Italy's Giorgia Sottana bravely drove to the basket, put a shot off the glass and it went in for a two-point lead just 6.8 seconds from the end.

After getting knocked to the floor and not having a foul called, she bounced up and ran back to play defense but Belarus hustled down the court to tie it.

Tatsiana Likhtarovich grabbed a missed three-pointer by Katsiaryna Snytsina and scored with the put-back, and a Yelena-Leuchanka-led Belarus prevailed in the extra period.

If that sequence at the end of regulation wasn't the turning point for Italy's summer and their bid to reach the Rio, then what happened the next day certainly was.

Italy jumped on top of Greece, 18-2, in the first quarter and looked as if they were going to play like a runaway train for the rest of the day.

But Azzurre coach Roberto Ricchini, following a turnover, called a timeout that he now probably regrets taking, one that gave Greece coach George Dikeoulakos a chance to reorganize his troops.

When they emerged from the huddle, the fans saw a different Greek team.

They stormed back to take the lead at half-time and though Italy edged ahead again in the third quarter, the Greeks dug in defensively in the fourth quarter and won, 51-46.

Yes, Italy had the heartbreak of their defeat to Belarus, but they should have used their great start against the Greeks as a launchpad to victory and a good tournament.

Instead, they lost to drop to 0-2.

They and Poland, who lost all four of their games, crashed out of the tournament in the opening round.

The teams that advanced from Oradea for the next stage in Debrecen were Belarus (3-0), Turkey (2-1) and Greece (2-2).

There have been more thrills and spills in Hungary and a team that looked very good for most of the time in Romania, Belarus, have not been very good at all since.

Belarus were involved in another nailbiter on the opening night of Group E in the second round of the Group Phase.

This time, the other team won.

You know the saying, "You live by the sword, you die by the sword?"

Belarus, who had lived with a last-second shot to force overtime against the Italians before winning, this time died by a last-second shot from the Czech Republic.

Alena Hanusova drilled the game-winner.

The player that truly killed Belarus was Katerina Elhotova, a shooting guard who had played all of three minutes in ZVVZ USK Prague's EuroLeague Women Final upset of UMMC Ekaterinburg not that long ago.

Elhotova had 25 points against Belarus, scoring on drives to the basket, with mid-range jumpers, with three-pointers and with free-throws.

Known best for her stroke from long range, Elhotova put on the best display of her career and led the Czechs to one of their proudest moments since 2010 when they reached the Final of the FIBA Women's World Championship.

If that win over Belarus was supposed to be the triumph that would trigger a Czech run to glory, it was not.

Two days later against a Greek team that apparently has no talent, no skill and no chance - at least that was thinking before the tournament - the Czechs lost.

It a was a gritty team effort from the Greeks, and another chance for Stella Kaltsidou, who has battled from serious knee injuries, to shine in the national team shirt again.

Belarus, so dominant in Group B with three wins in as many games, have lost their first two games in Debrecen.

Montenegro, thrashed in their first Group E game by Turkey, bounced back to win against Belarus.

France, unbeaten in Group A, had to pull out all stops to defeat Greece and then fell to Memnum and the Turks in their next game.

In Group E, every team goes into Sunday's play with a chance of progressing to the knockout round.

Now that's what I call parity.

Jeff Taylor

FIBA

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