While Israel is readying for the upcoming 2025 Eurobasket so are its opponents as they will face five national teams during the group phase in Katowice, Poland. One of those squads is Belgium who have had a rough time thus far with many players being unavailable for the tournament.<\/p>\n
In order to get a better understanding of what has plagued Belgium and what the expectations are for the \u201cLions\u201d, The Sports Rabbi spoke to veteran sports reporter Pat Ceulemans from Nieuwsblad Sport. Ceulemans, who has covered basketball and sports in Belgium for many years just returned home from Finland after accompanying the national team for a pair of preparation games against the host, but begins with the start of camp where it was clear that a good number of key players would not be able to participate in the European Championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a terrible start to camp because our two NBA players Ajay Mitchell from Oklahoma City and Portland\u2019s Toumani Camara are not playing,\u201d Ceulemans stated. \u201cAjay needs rest after an injury and just signed a new contract while Toumani Camara is negotiating for an upgraded and better contract in the NBA. Then we have some NCAA players with Thijs De Ridder joining Virginia and they are there in the United States doing administration while others are recuperating from injuries as well. Retin Obasohan is injured and needs a break and Vrenz Bleijenbergh signed a contract in Australia so there are a number of important players who are out.\u201d <\/p>\n
On the plus side, the players that are in camp and who will be featuring in Poland, are building chemistry, Ceulemans explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys have stuck together as Ismael Bako, Manu Lecomte and Hans Vanwijn are doing well as well as captain Jean-Marc Mwema and Andy Van Vliet who is going to play in his first Eurobasket along with some of the young talents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Vliet who played for Bnei Herzliya in Israel for a pair of seasons will be playing in his first Eurobasket tournament for Belgium and Ceulemans sees big man as a very important part of the squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cAndy will play in Germany this coming season and will be on the Eurobasket squad at the 4 position for the first time as he was always a backup for the 5. He is very excited to be going to the Eurobasket for the first time at 30 years of age. He is making his 3-pointers at camp and has good height plus Belgium really needs him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Belgium now has three preparation games under their belt, all having been losses but as they work together and ready themselves for a tournament in Ostend, there is hope that the squad will be able to meet the goals that they had set prior to the Eurobasket.<\/p>\n
\u201cBelgium had a good game in Athens against Greece and then there were the two games in Finland where Lauri Markannen had an amazing game with 48 points and Belgium lost by more than 40 so they were very down afterwards. But the team bounced back in the second game and played better on offense and they have work to do on defense after losing by 18 points.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is Belgium\u2019s 6th Eurobasket in a row and the ambition is to advance to the second round despite not having so many players so it will be tough. If Belgium has another issue then it will make it even tougher. They need to stay healthy and build chemistry with preparation games coming up against Great Britain and Bosnia.\u201d <\/p>\n
Four out of six teams in the Eurobasket group in Poland advance to the knockout stages which will take place in Latvia and Ceulemans is hopeful that Belgium can find a way to take a pair of wins which should be enough to send the side to Riga.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Belgium can win two games we make it through with Iceland being one and Poland or Israel being the other. Slovenia with Luka Doncic and France are the two favorites in the group and while they open up against France the reality is the focus will be on Iceland.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Belgium Women\u2019s National Team are back-to-back European Champions and Ceulemans would like to see the men\u2019s team have that type of success going forward and he believes that it could be possible if both Mitchell and Toumani would be a part of the roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe men\u2019s team has tried to advance like the women\u2019s and they do some promotion with them as they are very popular. They tried to do something with the two NBA players but when they are not here then you can\u2019t really take that next step. If Belgium was complete with the two NBA players then the team could make the quarterfinals and be in the Top 8.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cBoth Toumani and Ajay want to be part of the next generation but right now the team is struggling to survive although the hope is that they can do something good at the Eurobasket. While the exhibition games for the women\u2019s games are always sold out, the men\u2019s games coming up in Ostend won\u2019t be full. If the two NBA players were with the team then there would be no question that it would be sold out.\u201d<\/p>\n
All in all, Ceulemans feels that with the pair of NBA players men\u2019s basketball in Belgium is on a upward swing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the two will be with the team it will be huge because it will be the first time that Belgium had two real stars since we had DJ Mbenga. He was a role player with the Lakers while Ajay and Toumani are both impact players for their teams and they are always in the news. If they come next summer for Belgium they will fill the 20,000 seat Sports Palace in Antwerp. So the potential to grow the game in Belgium is there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While Israel is readying for the upcoming 2025 Eurobasket so are its opponents as they will face five national teams during the group phase in Katowice, Poland. One of those squads is Belgium who have had a rough time thus far with many players being unavailable for the tournament. In order to get a better […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":151898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4487,397,29,6424],"class_list":["post-151856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-land-hoops","tag-andy-van-vliet","tag-belgium","tag-israel","tag-pat-ceulemans","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n