Serbia secured the final qualifying spot for the basketball World Cup by defeating Great Britain 101-83 in their last qualifying match on Monday. Historically one of Europe’s strongest basketball nations, Serbia faced challenges during the qualification process. They lost two games to Belgium in the first round and missed an opportunity to secure their ticket by falling 97-92 to Greece, who had already qualified, on Friday. However, the team performed decisively against Great Britain, with Aleksa Avramovic leading the scoring with 20 points in Belgrade, despite the absence of reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jovic from the Denver Nuggets.
In a notable turn of events, basketball powerhouse Argentina will not be participating in the tournament for the first time since 1982. They were eliminated after a 79-75 loss to the Dominican Republic on Sunday.
The final list of 32 qualifiers includes teams from various regions:
– **Africa**: Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Angola, South Sudan, Egypt
– **Asia**: Philippines*, Japan*, Iran, New Zealand, Australia, Lebanon, Jordan, China
– **Americas**: USA, Canada, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela
– **Europe**: Finland, Lithuania, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, France, Latvia, Spain, Italy, Georgia, Montenegro, Serbia
(*Philippines and Japan qualified automatically as host nations.)
Comments are closed for this story.