The Lebanese National Basketball team continued its humiliating streak and lost to Spain by 34 points (91-57) tonight and is therefore out of the world championships that are being held in Turkey. Spain is a very strong team and the world champion, but the Spaniards weren’t at their best at all since the start of the tournament and lost two games already.
Why did Lebanon lose by that much?
Simple. Same Shitty tactics, same shitty plays, same shitty coach. We had no inside game and no centers to defend ourselves and as a result the top two scorers of the Spanish team were unsurprisingly its centers, with Mark Gasol scoring 25 points and Fran VAZQUEZ scoring another 15 points.
Jackson Vroman (the Lebanese player??) has been the most consistent so far in this tournament. Fadi el Khatib only played well in one game and was neutralized in the other games. Rony Fahed, Elie Rustom and Ali Mahmoud played hard and were the real asset of this team. Matt Freije played like crap, probably because he was not fit enough as he picked up an injury before the championships and the rest of the Lebanese players were practically in lalaland.
Of course let’s not forget our coach who cost us over 100,000$ and humiliated the Lebanese basketball team like never before. Maybe the Lebanese Basketball Federation should start using its brains and investing money in young talents instead of spending money on naturalizing foreign players and getting foreign coaches.
A very sad ending to what was supposed to be our most promising championships.
Looks like our guys are still resting from their first win of the tournament. It sure looks like their first win was indeed a surprising one when compared to the next two games that followed.
After winning against Canada, the Lebanese Basketball team lost to the French team convincingly 86 to 59. Our weak point today, as i had pointed it out few days ago, was our inside play and our rebound capability. We only had two centers and none were able to contain the French inside game. French players were very physical as well and dominated the box. Added to that, this new coach made the stupidest changes i’ve ever seen.
In the second quarter, as soon as Vroman sat on the bench, the French led a 10-0 run and kept it until the last quarter. He never asked for any time out to stop the French run.
In the third quarter, he chose to rest Fadi el Khatib, Elias Rustom, Rony Fahd and at some point Matt Frayge. We were down by 14 points for God’s sake! How do you put all your key players out? Or maybe he had hoped Ghaleb Rida and Ali Kanaan would make some difference? Ghaleb sure helped the French open up the gap every time he spread his legs (don’t ask me why he does that) to shoot his failed 3 pointers. Ali barely caught a rebound and was outside the box most of the time.
Fourth quarter was a joke too. No fight backs by any Lebanese player and the coach seemed careless. I really don’t understand how we get ourselves to the world championships and not put out a decent fight? Is it too much to ask for the team and his coach to be enthusiastic and motivated?
Next game is on Tuesday against New Zealand on Tuesday at 4 pm. If Lebanon loses, he is out.
Lebanon won his first game at the World Basketball championship being held in Turkey against Canada 81-71. The best scorer was Fadi el Khatib with 31 points.
This is relatively Lebanon’s easiest game. The hard part is yet to come.
Whomever said that Lebanese basketball died after President Choueiri,(R.I.P) stopped sponsoring teams was not wrong at all!
The Lebanese Basketball Federation is a complete joke and has proudly proven so throughout the years. I just saw their selection for the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey and Roy Samaha was excluded from the squad. He also barely played in the Stankovic cup which Lebanon kind of struggled to win despite the absence of any major team.
I am not sure what this new coach is thinking, but the teams we are facing in Turkey require big guys and he somehow managed to exclude the biggest guy on the team!
Now one might argue that he hasn’t been showing his best game lately, though he averaged almost 10 points and 10 rebounds in the 2009 season, but to be replaced by Ghaleb Rida and Ali Kanaan is quite outrageous. Rida is almost retired and Kanaan is everything but a center!
Funnily enough, Lebanese scouts are busy looking for old retired Lebanese players outside Lebanon (Matt Frangieh for example) or foreign retired players to naturalize (Jackson Froman) instead of recruiting new Lebanese talents. The last real team we had goes back to Elie Mechantaf’s days. Now all we got are a bunch of individuals trying to show off, on top of them Fadi el Khatib who knows nothing about team work.
Let’s just hope we don’t get humiliated too much in Turkey and this stupid-ass coach they got is fired soon enough.
Here’s the schedule for the 2010 FIBA championship.
The Lebanese National Basketball team won the FIBA Asia Stanković Cup 2010, which is a qualifying event for the FIBA Asia Championship that will be held in Beirut in 2011.
Lebanon defeated Japan easily in the finals, in a game that was attended by the president of the republic Michel Sleiman, Interior minister Ziad Baroud and MP Sheikh Nadim Gemayel.
I attended the semi-finals against the Phillipines but stayed home to watch the final as it is too damn hot in the stadium and very chaotic.
Nevertheless, Mabrouk la Lebnen!
PS: Lebanon is ranked 24th worldwide according to the FIBA.
It is not everyday that you hear about a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. They usually enjoy staying here for long long long periods of time.
Nevertheless, The Syrian basketball team withdrew yesterday from his game against the Lebanese team in the Stankovic Asian championship tournament because of the insults and booing from the crowds.
The only thing i feel bad about is not being part of the game yesterday!
We’ve suffered God knows how many losses cause of cheating referees in games against Syria, Egypt, China and a long list of countries. The least we can do is support our team in every possible way when we are playing on home ground. And if few insults and booings are enough to make a professional basketball team withdraw from a game, then maybe the Syrian team shouldn’t have participated in the first place.
So in all, Lebanon won his second game after a victory over the Phillipines on Saturday, Syria withdrew and Bacho prevailed.
PS: For those who don’t know Bacho, he’s the guy in orange in the picture above and he’s been leading the Lebanese and Hekmeh crowds for over 10 years.
I spotted this banner while on my way to Baalbeck the other day. I am not sure what they mean by “amateur” champion but i couldn’t find that guy anywhere on the net.
Not sure how many readers like Formula1, but i am a big fan myself and today’s race was really a spectacular one and entertaining as well. I don’t recall ever seeing two Formula1 cars hit each other in the pit lane that way. Thank God no one got hurt because it could have been a disastrous accident had it hit the mechanics.
The weirdest of penalties was also given today, i didn’t know it even existed.
Sebastian Vettel the German driver for Red Bull and a favourite to win the championship was given 10 seconds drive-through penalty for letting a 10 car distance between him and the race leader while the safety car was on.
Are there any groups or tours that do downhill mountain biking in Lebanon? I would imagine there would be since there are a lot of great mountain bike trails but can’t seem to find any info about them on Google.
Update: Thanks to Joe I found the following [Link]
Update2: Found a great post about these guys who rode practically across the Lebanese mountain on their bikes. Very hardcore but thats expected since one of the guys was Lebanese adventurer Maxime Chaya. [Part 1] [Part 2]
It looks like the most beautiful teams, not just the strongest teams are winning in the 2010 World Cup.
According to beautifulpeople.com, the Spanish team has the highest average beauty score (5.79), followed by the Dutch (5.52) and the Germans (5.15). [Full List]
The best-looking player turned out to be Fabio Cannavaro, while the ugliest player was England player Wayne Rooney. [Eurosport]
Finally, Paraguay might not have the most beautiful squad, but one of its supporters, Lingerie model Larissa Riquelme, has promised to run naked through the streets of Asuncion naked despite her team’s loss.
Maradona also promised to run naked in the streets of Bueno Aires if Argentina were to win the world cup, but who would want such an ugly sight?
For all those interested, No date has been set yet for Riquelme’s naked run.
Looks like the “psychic” octopus was right.
The Germans destroyed the English today and advanced to the quarter finals. England were denied a second goal that was 100% correct but that doesn’t change anything. It is quite ironic though cause England were granted a similar goal in 1966 against the Germans even though it wasn’t a goal.
Ten Freaking hours and the game is not over yet!!!!
It was halted at 59-59 in the fifth set after an astonishing ten hours when bad light halted play.[Eurosport]
The match was between John Isner from the USA and France’s Nicolas Mahut. The previous longest game was only 6 hours and 33 minutes between Santoro and Clement at the French Open in 2004.
