Vilnius (heinnews) – FIBA Europe organizers desperately wanted to bring more nations to the EuroBasket party when they pushed the field from 16 to 24 teams. Unfortunately the system in place of two round robin rounds and then knockout games starting at the quarterfinals have lengthened the tournament to nearly three weeks and taken some of the excitement out of the event.
heinnews – in collaboration with Javier Gancedo – would like to propose a plan to keep the number of teams at 24 while cutting the number of games for the players; spacing those game out a bit more; drastically shortening the tournament; and adding more excitement.
The new plan would give an advantage to winning the first round groups by giving the winners a direct spot in the quarterfinals and then send the tournament to the knockout stage.
So… 24 teams, 12 go through to knockout stages. Players get an extra day of rest (and without the players we’d have no tournament) and never play more than two games in a row. Top eight teams play out for final placing and the tournament goes from 19 to 16 days. One condition, semis take place on Friday with gold and bronze medal games on Sunday. Also, dates are not set, just included to give clarity of length of tourametn
Here the proposal:
Sept. 1-7
Group Stage (in four venues)
Four groups of six teams each – played out over seven days (Sept. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) (Games 1-20)
Groups A and B – one game, day off, two games, day off, two games
Groups C and D –two games, one day off, two games, one day off one game
Sept. 8
Travel/Rest day
Sept. 9
Crossover Stage
C2 vs. D3 (Game 21)
D2 vs. C3 (Game 22)
Sept. 10
Crossover Stage
A2 vs. B3 (Game 23)
B2 vs. A3 (Game 24)
Sept 11
Quarterfinals
A1 vs. (Winner Gm 21) (Game 25) (Quarter)
B1 vs. (Winner Gm 22) (Game 26) (Quarter)
Sept 12
Quarterfinals
C1 vs. (Winner Gm 23) (Game 27) (Quarter)
D1 vs. (Winner Gm 24) (Game 28) (Quarter)
Sept 13
5-8 Classification
(Loser Gm 25) vs. (Loser Gm 26) (Game 29) (5-8 Classification)
(Loser Gm 27) vs. (Loser Gm 28) (Game 30) (5-8 Classification)
Sept 14
Semifinals
(Winner Gm 25) vs. (Winner Gm 26) (Game 31) (Semi)
(Winner Gm 27) vs. (Winner Gm 28) (Game 32) (Semi)
Sept 15
5-8 Classification
(Loser Gm 29) vs. (Loser Gm 30) (Game 33) (7th Place)
(Winner Gm 29) vs. (Winner Gm 30) (Game 34) (5th Place)
Sept 16
(Loser Gm 31) vs. (Loser Gm 32) (Game 35) (Bronze)
(Winner Gm 31) vs. (Winner Gm 32) (Game 36) (Gold Medal)