All Roads Lead to Spain: Team Focus - GREECE

The 2014 FIBA World Cup of Basketball is closing in. After 36 years, a Filipino team is once again among the teams participating, and Pinoy hoop nuts the world over eagerly await how Gilas Pililipinas will fare against the world's best basketball talents.

In this five-part series, I will give a preview of what to expect from each team Gilas will face in Group B. In this particular post, we'll focus on the last team to defeat Team USA in the FIBA World Championships (way back in 2006), Greece.

Giannis Antetokounmpo might have many chances
to do this when Greece takes on Gilas Pilipinas.
(image from NBA.com)

(as of August 24, 2014)

Our 2014 FIBA World Cup Wildcard Picks

One of the most important announcements FIBA will make this year concerns the 2014 FIBA World Cup roster of teams. There are a total of 24 slots for the said event, with 20 already filled up by the host country (Spain), the Olympic champion (USA), and the qualifiers from the different FIBA subzones. These eighteen qualified teams are the following:

FIBA Africa: Angola, Egypt, and Senegal
FIBA Americas: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Dominican Republic
FIBA Asia: Iran, Philippines, and South Korea
FIBA Europe: France, Lithuania, Croatia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Serbia
FIBA Oceania: Australia and New Zealand

On 1 February 2014, the Central Board of FIBA will finally announce decision regarding the four remaining slots. The teams that are to fill these slots will be taken from the pool of fifteen countries that applied for the wild card berths. These fifteen are:

FIBA Africa: Nigeria
FIBA Americas: Brazil, Canada, and Venezuela
FIBA Asia: China and Qatar
FIBA Europe: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Finland, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Poland, Russia, and Turkey

Who will we see in Spain this year?