Turkey - Turkey Goes Hard to the Hoop
Soccer is king in Turkey, but with three Turkish players in the N.B.A. — Hidayet “Hedo” Turkoglu of the Toronto Raptors, Mehmet Okur of the Utah Jazz and Ersan Ilyasova of the Milwaukee Bucks — basketball may be second in line to the throne. Now Turkish fans will have a chance to see plenty of scoring and muscle-driven rebounds when the country plays host to the 2010 FIBA World Championships from Aug. 28 to Sept. 12. Tickets are on sale now.
From globespotters.blogs.nytimes.com
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Soccer is king in Turkey, but with three Turkish players in the N.B.A. — Hidayet “Hedo” Turkoglu of the Toronto Raptors, Mehmet Okur of the Utah Jazz and Ersan Ilyasova of the Milwaukee Bucks — basketball may be second in line to the throne.
Now Turkish fans will have a chance to see plenty of scoring and muscle-driven rebounds when the country plays host to the 2010 FIBA World Championships from Aug. 28 to Sept. 12. Tickets are on sale now.
The round-robin tournament features 80 games played in four cities — Istanbul, Ankara, Kayseri and Izmir — with the finals set for Sept. 12 in Istanbul.
As host, Turkey automatically qualified for the tournament, as did the United States, by winning the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Other qualifiers for the FIBA tournament include Angola, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, France, Greece, Iran, Ivory Coast, Jordan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain and Tunisia.
The final draw, to determine which country plays which opponent and when, is set for Dec. 15.