EuroBasket 2011 was the 37th men's European Basketball Championship, held by FIBA Europe. The competition was hosted by Lithuania. This was the second time EuroBasket had been held in Lithuania, the country having also hosted the 1939 championship. FIBA Europe asserted that Lithuania managed to organize the best European championship in its history. The top two teams are guaranteed spots at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
EuroBasket 2011 was the largest sporting event in the history of the Baltic states, both in terms of the number of national teams (24), games (90), and that of spectators (158,000 tickets sold, with most tickets valid for three separate games.)
Spain won the title for the second consecutive tournament, after defeating France, by a score of 98–85 in the final. Spain's Juan Carlos Navarro was the tournament's MVP.
Venues and attendances
The group matches were played in four arenas, namely Alytus Arena, Šiauliai Arena, Cido Arena in Panevėžys and an arena in Klaipėda. The second stage matches were played at the Siemens Arena in the capital Vilnius and the playoffs at the new Žalgiris Arena in Kaunas.
All tickets were sold for matches in which Lithuania played in a matter of several hours after the start of sale. Other tickets were also sold out in advance for all venues except for Alytus (75% of available tickets sold in total). However the Organizing Committee's policy of selling tickets as a 3-game package meant that in some cases the sold-out arenas were not full as some fans would choose to go to only some of the games their ticket entitled them to. This policy was altered in Panevėžys where there were separate tickets for the games Lithuania played.
20,000 foreign visitors went to Lithuania for the championship. 135,000 local fans visited the arenas. 120,000 people (both local and foreign) watched EuroBasket 2011 matches in special fan zones that were constructed beside every arena with a large screen and outdoor seating available.
Among the foreign teams the Georgian, Slovenian, Russian and Latvian national teams had the most fans traveling from their home countries. Georgians had certain city squares decorated in their flags in both Klaipėda and Vilnius.
Several famous people and heads of states went to championship. This included the president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov and prince of Spain Felipe.
Location Picture City Arena Capacity Status Round Kaunas Žalgiris Arena 15,442 Opened in 2011 Knockout stage Vilnius Siemens Arena 11,000 Opened in 2004 Group E, Group F Šiauliai Šiauliai Arena 5,700 Opened in 2007 Group B Panevėžys Cido Arena 5,656 Opened in 2008 Group A Alytus Alytus Arena 5,500 Opened in 1981, reopened after reconstruction in 2011 Group C Klaipėda Švyturio Arena 5,486 Opened in 2011 Group D
Teams
It was first decided that 16 teams would participate in EuroBasket 2011, however FIBA Europe decided on 5 September 2010, in a meeting in Istanbul, that there would be 24 teams in the tournament, after the Qualifying Round was concluded.
Lithuania automatically received a place as the hosts, nine other countries that competed in the 2010 FIBA World Championship also received a place, 12 Countries were determined through qualifying matches played in August 2010 (five had initially qualified, and seven were added after the decision to expand the tournament to 24 teams), and two more qualifiers were decided in an additional qualifying tournament that took place in August 2011. All but one of the 15 countries that participated in the Qualifying Round qualified for the final tournament.
Qualification
Qualified teams Competition Date Vacancies Qualified Host nation – 1 Participant of 2010 FIBA World Championship 28 August – 12 September 2010 9 Qualified through Qualifying Round 2 August 2010 – 29 August 2010 5 Qualified through FIBA Europe decision 5 September 2010 7 Qualified through Additional Qualifying Round 9 August 2011 – 24 August 2011 2
Squads
Each team consisted of 12 players. Only 1 among the 12 could be a naturalised foreign player, who could not have been in the national team of another nation. Some of the teams had players that traced their ancestry to the teams they represent and were allowed to play for that team, such as Germany (US-born Chris Kaman) and Israel (US-born David Blu, who as Jewish was entitled to Israeli citizenship from birth). Other teams naturalised players participating in their country's league system, among them Spain (Congolese-born Serge Ibaka), Croatia (US-born Dontaye Draper), Bulgaria (US-born E. J. Rowland), Belgium (US-born Marcus Faison), and Poland (US-born Thomas Kelati, who qualified for Polish citizenship through marriage to a Pole). Montenegro and Macedonia each naturalised US-born players who had never played in their league system, but had played in neighbouring Serbia, respectively Omar Cook and Bo McCalebb. Other naturalised players moved to their current countries in their youth, with a notable example being Great Britain's Luol Deng, who fled the Sudanese Civil War with his family as a child.
Lithuania, Serbia, Portugal (Cape Verde was a Portuguese colony) and Finland are notable exceptions, with all of their players having been born in Lithuania, Portugal, Serbia and Finland respectively. Another exception was Latvia playing without foreign players. Turkey had Enes Kanter, who was born to Turkish parents in Switzerland as well as Emir Preldzic, who was born in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina and had already played on the national team of Slovenia in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in 2008 and Slovenian youth national teams.
Some of the Eastern European national teams, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, were composed mainly or entirely from players playing abroad. This was primarily true for countries that have good basketball players but no powerful clubs or leagues to match that.
On the other hand, for countries with strong leagues, such as Italy, the National teams were primarily composed of players playing in the local league. The same was true for countries weak in basketball (i.e. with both weak national team and local league) as their players are unable to get into strong foreign leagues. Portugal could be an example here.
Many NBA players represented their national teams, with the Spanish team having 6 NBA stars, the French team having 5, the Turkish team having 4, and so on. It was one of the strongest European basketball competition ever organized as a lot of European stars helped their nations.
Notable players and coaches
Spain: Pau Gasol Marc Gasol Rudy Fernández Ricky Rubio Juan Carlos Navarro José Calderón Serge Ibaka Sergio Scariolo (coach) France: Tony Parker Joakim Noah Nicolas Batum Boris Diaw Mickaël Gelabale Nando de Colo Russia: Andrei Kirilenko Victor Khryapa Timofey Mozgov Andrey Vorontsevich Vitaly Fridzon Alexey Shved Sergei Monia David Blatt (coach) Macedonia: Bo McCalebb Vlado Ilievski Pero Antić Finland Hanno Möttölä Petteri Koponen Sasu Salin Henrik Dettmann (coach)
Lithuania: Šarūnas Jasikevičius Jonas Valančiūnas Darius Songaila Rimantas Kaukėnas Kšyštof Lavrinovič Greece: Ioannis Bourousis Nikos Zisis Nick Calathes Kostas Papanikolaou Kosta Koufos Slovenia: Jaka Lakovič Goran Dragić Erazem Lorbek Mirza Begić Božidar Maljković (coach) Serbia: Miloš Teodosić Nemanja Bjelica Nenad Krstić Duško Savanović Dušan Ivković (coach) Germany: Dirk Nowitzki Chris Kaman Turkey: Ersan İlyasova Ömer Aşık Enes Kanter Hedo Türkoğlu
Georgia: Zaza Pachulia Giorgi Shermadini Tornike Shengelia Croatia: Ante Tomić Marko Popović Bojan Bogdanović Dontaye Draper Great Britain: Luol Deng Joel Freeland Israeli: Omri Casspi Poland: Thomas Kelati Dardan Berisha Bosnia and Herzegovina Mirza Teletović Italy: Andrea Bargnani Marco Belinelli Danilo Gallinari Simone Pianigiani (coach) Montenegro: Omar Cook Nikola Peković Nikola Vučević Latvia: Dāvis Bertāns Dairis Bertāns Belgium: Tomas Van Den Spiegel D. J. Mbenga Portugal: Mário Palma (coach)
Group draw and championship system
The draw ceremony held on 30 January 2011 in the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, Vilnius, divided the qualified teams into four groups of six, groups A, B, C, and D. The hosts of the evening were Jurgita Jurkutė and Vytautas Rumšas. The balls were drawn by retired basketball players European champions and Olympic medalists Stasys Stonkus, Modestas Paulauskas, Dino Meneghin, Sergejus Jovaiša, Alexander Anatolyevich Volkov and Arvydas Sabonis. A special concert followed the draw where a song was dedicated for each of the participating nations.
It was decided that Group A games would take place in Panevėžys, Group B in Šiauliai, Group C in Alytus and Group D in Klaipėda.
Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 Line 5 Line 6
In the first stage every team had to play against every other team of their group (round robin). This meant five matches per team.
From every group the 3 best teams advanced to the second stage and the 3 worst teams were eliminated. In the second stage 2 new groups were formed. The 3 best teams from groups A and B were united to form group E whereas the 3 best teams from groups C and D were united to form group F.
In these two new groups of the second stage only matches by teams that had not yet played each other had to be played. As for the matches that had already happened in the first stage their results would also count in the second stage. Therefore, every team played 3 matches and there were 12 teams in the second stage.
Out of the second stage the 4 best teams from each of the two groups advanced to the quarterfinals (8 teams in total) whereas the 2 worst teams were eliminated from championship (4 teams in total).
Logo, official song and mascot of the championship
A public contest was introduced to create the logo for the competition. 49 designs were presented initially to the organizers and the best three were sent to FIBA Europe, which selected the winning design. The author of it was designer Kęstutis Koira. The EuroBasket 2011 logo was unveiled on 24 January 2009 in Cido Arena, Panevėžys, during the final game of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation Cup. It displays the Columns of Gediminas overlaid on a backboard.
Lithuania is the first host country of EuroBasket to have an official EuroBasket song. The song "Celebrate basketball", written by Marijonas Mikutavičius and performed by Mia, Mantas Jankavičius and Marijonas Mikutavičius, was chosen by a televoting in Lithuania. There are two versions of the song – in Lithuanian and English. Later, another version was added – "Nebetyli sirgaliai" (lit. The Fans are no Longer Quiet).
The mascot of the championship was Amberis. Its head was in the form and color of a piece of amber. The name "Amberis" is a portmanteau of the English word amber and the Lithuanian nominative case masculine gender ending "is". The real word for amber in Lithuanian is Gintaras. There was an Amberis in every arena and quite frequently there were more than a single Amberis at a time interacting with each other as well as spectators. On the screens in the arenas a "legend" was shown where a piece of amber was given by a coach to a young basketball player to bring him luck and this piece turned into Amberis.
Special events
Basketball enjoys extraordinary popularity in Lithuania. As such, many events were organized to mark the championship, including: