PUR - Ten countries, one dream, the FIBA World Championship:
A total of ten national teams begin their dream of the 2010 FIBA World Championship with the start of the 2009 FIBA Americas Championship that begins today at Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
SAN JUAN (FIBA Americas Championship) - A total of ten national teams begin their dream of the 2010 FIBA World Championship with the start of the 2009 FIBA Americas Championship that begins today at Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Five national teams integrate each group with high expectations to reach the second round and finish in the top 4 at the end of that phase in order to qualify into the 2010 FIBA World Championship to be played in Turkey.
Group A has Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and US Virgin Islands. Group B features Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Panama and Venezuela.
US Virgin Islands and Uruguay open the tournament, as both teams have a lot of questions to be answered and a lot of show. Uruguay brings a well prepared team with a good nucleus of players who hopes to bring surprises to enter the World Championship. USVI doesn't have their main figures but they will come out and play hard on both sides of the court.
Two of the favorites to win it all will debut against each other as Brazil faces the Dominican Republic at 16:00. The Dominican Republic brings three NBA players and many of them have experience in the best league in the World. Brazil has a solid team who won the Marchand Continental Championship Cup celebrated last week in San Juan.
The third game of the night is Venezuela against Argentina. The Argentineans had a bad showing in the Tuto Marchand Cup but received a new player in Pablo Prigioni who just signed with Real Madrid and was a teammate of Luis Scola in Tau Cerámica. Actually Scola is the player that will take charge of the offense and on both sides of the court. Venezuela has not been mentioned as one of the favorites but they have a team with a lot of talent and with a good mix of young and veteran players.
Finally Puerto Rico receives Mexico to close day one. Puerto Rico already has their twelve players and hope to qualify directly into the FIBA World Championship, something they couldn't accomplish in 2005. For this tournament they have Carlos Arroyo, Peter John Ramos, Daniel Santiago and Ángelo Reyes as their key players. Mexico comes to win a couple of games in the first round and hopefully get some more in the second round.
You can follow this event live at http://puertorico2009.fibaamericas.com with live news and stats from the event. You can also see live video on www.fibatv.com.
FIBA Americas