Let's welcome the South American League

BUENOS AIRES (Martin Seldes' Brave New World) - And suddenly, the international season ended. No more basketball with national teams playing 10-game tournaments to qualify to another tournament with similar characteristics that will bring them pride and recognition.

Once those tournaments were over, basketball seemed to be over.

However, from one day to the other, news related to basketball from all over the world started to arrive. First it was the NBA media days and the beginning of those teams gathering. Then, many teams from many other countries started training. And, suddenly, there was a new competition going on.

The South American League has already started. With the results we expected, one of the two big tournaments of the region had the responsibility to open a new season.

The only time in the season that every team have the same options of ending on the top of the list is now. Except for those two that were already eliminated in the first group of the league. It's true that an Ecuatorian and a Bolivian team are expecting to lose every single game against a Brazilian and an Argentinean team. But who knows, may be one day...

Boca and Uniceub showed that the season can change and that every team can feel confident but at the end of the day, nobody was surprised to see how these two teams, even in the off-season, made it easily to the next round.

Comunikt, a very young team from Ecuador, travelled to Brazil to gain experience. And they definitively got it. After losing by just six points to Boca - a club with two starters from Argentina's national team that played in Caracas - the Ecuatorians did as much as they could against the team that spent the biggest amount of money during the last months: Uniceub.

We can say that Comunikt goes back home with good feelings - especially after scoring 145 points in the last game against Atletico Nacional. The poor Bolivian team ended their trip in Brasilia with 416 points against.

The South American League (Liga Sudamericana) will now go on with three more groups in three consecutive weeks.

In the middle of Group A and B, Olympiakos and Sky Pinheiros were in charge of playing the Intercontinental Cup in Sao Paulo.

Yes, not bad to see the European champions against the American champions. The problem is that the championship that carried Pinheiros to face the Greeks is not this tournament but the Americas League, which is played further on in the season.

From now on, two Brazilians and two Argentineans will have to struggle against the Venezuelans, the Uruguayans, some good Chilean teams and will probably see how a Colombian and a team from Peru try to avoid what Atletico Nacional suffered last week.

Once the four groups are played in the South American League, eight teams will remain in the tournament. Divided in two Semi-Final rounds of four (in two venues to be defined), only half of the teams will then make it to the Final Four (also with a venue to be defined) that will be played by the end of November.

As we have said once and again, it's hard to explain why FIBA Americas insists on playing three different tournaments throughout the season starting with a very competitive one even before the most important leagues have even started. Who knows, may be one day...

Martin Seldes

FIBA

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