Continental Championships: Qualifying for the World Cup in Japan

All the continental championships are going down in August and September, and here’s how the World Cup spots are looking:

AFRICA—3 SPOTS
OCEANIA—2 SPOTS
AMERICA—4 SPOTS + ARGENTINA
ASIA—3 SPOTS + HOST JAPAN
EUROPE—6 SPOTS
WILD CARD—4 SPOTS

EUROPE: 9/16–9/25
ASIA: 9/8–9/16
OCEANIA:
-Tournament's wrapped up. Only two teams played and they both grabbed their tickets. That would be Australia beating out New Zealand.

AFRICA:
-Also done. Angola takes the top spot after beating Senegal in the final, followed by Nigeria in third after taking down Algeria.

AMERICA:
Their tournament is still moving, where 4 teams plus Argentina qualify for the World Cup.
The Americans are a total mixed bag right now and actually managed to blow their first game since 1992—lost to Canada. Just saw they choked again against Venezuela, too. I'll try to dig up the rosters...

Here is the current standings:

group 1
BRA 2-1
USA 2-2
VEN 2-1
CAN 1-1
PAN 0-2
Panama vs Canada tonight

group 2
ARG 2-1
DOM 2-0
URU 1-3
MEX 1-2
PUE 1-1

-TOP 4 FROM EACH GROUP MOVE ON...

A few interesting bits:
-Mexico is currently beating up on Argentina, who feature Jason and Kammerichs.
-Looking at the US roster from that Canada loss: there are a lot of guys with European ties: Edney, Greer, Slay... can't remember the rest.

Here's a link with all the scores; you can find the rosters there too:
link
If that gets taken down, just hit the main Americas site and look for the banner for the tournament in Dominican Republic: link
Based on this, the Americans might not even qualify directly and will be stuck waiting for a Wild Card invitation. 😳

World Cup link in Japan: link

Here's the US roster stats:

2 Pts 3 Pts FT Points Reb
# Player GP Min M/A % M/A % M/A % Pts Avg O/D Tot Ast PF TO St BS
1 0 0/0 0.0 0/0 0.0 0/0 0.0 0 0.0 0/0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 Edney, T. 3 68 9/16 56.3 1/2 50.0 4/6 66.7 25 8.3 1/4 5 10 2 7 4 0
5 Perry, M. 2 22 5/6 83.3 0/1 0.0 0/0 0.0 10 5.0 0/0 0 2 2 5 3 0
6 Greer, L. 3 60 3/10 30.0 7/10 70.0 9/11 81.8 36 12.0 2/1 3 6 9 1 2 0
7 Bell, C. 3 78 3/14 21.4 10/25 40.0 1/2 50.0 37 12.3 1/9 10 6 5 8 3 0
8 Scales, A. 3 73 7/14 50.0 9/16 56.3 6/9 66.7 47 15.7 3/6 9 6 8 6 6 0
9 Hamilton, T. 3 41 8/11 72.7 1/2 50.0 0/0 0.0 19 6.3 4/9 13 3 3 1 0 3
10 Slay, R. 3 51 3/10 30.0 2/5 40.0 4/4 100.0 16 5.3 1/1 2 6 6 6 2 1
11 Chubb, A. 2 8 0/3 0.0 0/0 0.0 1/2 50.0 1 0.5 0/0 0 0 3 0 0 0
12 Felix, N. 3 18 2/5 40.0 0/0 0.0 0/0 0.0 4 1.3 2/3 5 0 7 3 0 0
13 Mc Ghee, A. 3 65 7/12 58.3 1/4 25.0 7/9 77.8 24 8.0 4/24 28 4 9 4 2 0
14 Beasley, J. 3 57 11/22 50.0 0/1 0.0 3/5 60.0 25 8.3 3/9 12 3 10 8 1 1
15 Lang, K. 3 59 9/12 75.0 0/0 0.0 4/7 57.1 22 7.3 4/9 13 0 11 4 1 5

With just one round left in the USA Championship regular season, we finally know who all four teams heading to the World Cup in Japan are going to be.

Besides the defending champs, SP Argentina, the lucky ones are:

BRAZIL
USA
VENEZUELA
PANAMA

Now, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic will be waiting on that final invitation.

Here’s the lineup as it stands so far:

1.EUROPE1
2.EUROPE2
3.EUROPE3
4.EUROPE4
5.EUROPE5
6.EUROPE6
7.BRAZIL-AMERICA1
8.VENEZUELA-AMERICA2
9.USA-AMERICA3
10.PANAMA-AMERICA4
11.AUSTRALIA-OCE1
12.NEW ZEALAND-OCE2
13.ANGOLA-AFR1
14.SENEGAL-AFR2
15.NIGERIA-AFR3
16.CHINA-ASIA1
17.LEBANON-ASIA2
18.QATAR-ASIA3
19.JAPAN-HOST
20.ARGENTINA-OLYMPIC CHAMPION
21.-24. WILD CARD

So, here’s how they handle those 4 wild card invites:
Once those first 20 teams are locked in, the NBA Board of Governors has the tough job of picking the final 4 spots via "wild cards." The Board of Governors meeting on November 26/27 this year in Rome, Italy, will make the call based on these rules:

To get an invite, a team has to have played in their respective NBA Zone Qualifying Championship.
No more than three teams per NBA Zone.

On top of those two things, the NBA shall take into consideration the following aspects:

Sporting Aspects
- How much people in that country actually love basketball
- The talent level and recent track record of the national team
- How well the National Federation is run

Economic Aspects
- Local TV coverage and interest in domestic vs. international hoops
- How much the country matters to the NBA's marketing and TV partners
- The importance of the host nation to the World Championship organizers

Once the full field of 24 is set, the group draw for the preliminary round matchups is happening in January 2006 in Japan.

HAHAHAHA.....so the decision happens in Rome...which means Italy, Puerto Rico, Mexico and who else?

fortaleza said:With just one round left in the regular season of the Americas Championship, we finally know which four teams will be heading to the World Cup in Japan.

Besides the defending champions from SP Argentina, those teams are:

I was actually under the impression they weren't the defending titleholders. 🙄