Puerto Rico 2009 – Fourth Entry: Four nations heading to Turkey next year – Who else?

[by Kris SANTIAGO] - Hola ! Here we are, in the semi-finals with four countries qualified for Turkey 2010: Brazil, Puerto Rico, Argentina and in a heartbreaker yesterday over the Dominican Republic, the Canadian team. It was a great game to watch as Canada had their best player in their point guard Jermaine Anderson who exploded for 21 points while the Dominicans were handicapped after getting the news, that the Sacramento Kings would not allow Francisco Garcia to play in this crucial match-up due to a minor hand-injury which he sustained earlier in this tournament. That combined with having problems on the point-guard position (Morban caught a bad day but there is no substitute on the Dominican team), the Caribbean nation lost 76-80 to the Canadians who were clicking their shots in at the right time of the game while the Dominicans had almost five players playing around 30 minutes that game with no help coming off the bench.

Coach Rautins was more than happy at the press conference after the game but his mood changed a bit when Brazilian reporters repeatedly asked about Steve Nash and later about Francisco Garcia’s no-show. Now Canada will be heading to Turkey instead of the Dominicans who will be applying for a Wild Card altogether with Nigeria, Cameroon and Lebanon from the other already concluded qualifiers and a bunch of European countries to join them as well. The chances of each country depend on certain criteria which were defined by FIBA a couple of years ago. Three wild-cards could go to Europe as teams are usually known to be very competitive and have in most cases met the criteria while I believe that this time, FIBA may opt for less wild-cards from Europe and may opt to include more countries from Asia, Africa and the Americas. But that’s all my guessing, so all the fans now can do is to sit back and relax while waiting for the decision in December.

Back to the tournament:
Mexico finally clinched a 74-67 win on the last day of the second stage against Panama, while the Uruguayans swifted away with a 73-66 loss against Argentina after a strong start into the tournament. Puerto Rico is now facing Argentina tonight while Brazil takes on Canada right now while I’m writing this piece. Barbosa is playing as well as Splitter so I expect good game off the Brazilians while Canada is on the come up after their strong performance yesterday.

I can’t wait for the second game to start as the fans are again going nuts when their squad is playing. The Argentinos brought also a couple of their fans to Puerto Rico, so a lot of emotions will be displayed near the courtside seats.

Let me take a second to thank the FIBA Communications-team (Mathieu and Florian), that had the nerve to take this crazy blogger to Puerto Rico (I know, I know - I can talk ears off 24/7). Also a quick shout out to Luis of FIBA Americas for providing me with news and information around the tournament as well as for bringing us home after the games. I’m looking forward to see you guys again, maybe in Turkey next year! Also, the organization of the tournament was more than professional and FIBA Americas should be having no problem to fill a video with three hours of highlights from the tournaments as the players did a great job in entertaining the fans here in San Juan. The country itself is a great place to spend your next vacations and the people were more than happy to help me out whenever I needed any help.

That’s unfortunately all from Puerto Rico; my next blog comes with a detailed analysis of all teams that took part in the FIBA Americas Tournament next week!

I’m out like my cold (Alaska-like air condition killed me)