2019 FIBA World Cup Group A preview: Cote d’Ivoire, Poland, Venezuela, China
The FIBA World Cup starts August 31st and runs until September 15th. In preparation, TI breaks down each of the eight groups heading into round one. Up first Group A.
Saturday, August 31 the FIBA World Cup begins with China as the host country to the 32 participating teams. Round one features eight groups of four teams. After playing each of the three teams in their individual group the top two teams move on to the second round where they’ll face the two teams they didn’t play in round one.
In the round of 16, again the top two teams from each group advance to the next phase. Those top eight teams then play in a single elimination setting until the winner is determined on September 15th.
This World Cup holds extra value since the top seven teams will secure a berth at the Toyko, Japan Olympics next summer. As the host country, Japan already has a spot locked in. The final four berths will be decided in wild card tournaments played next year. Those take on extra stress for countries vying for seeds as NBA players won’t be available given those tournaments occur during the season.
Group A consists of Cote d’Ivoire, Poland, Venezuela, and China. This is the only group without any NBA players on any of the participating teams.
Cote d’Ivoire Roster:
- Souleyman Diabate – Point Guard
- Baru Adjehi – Power Forward
- Bali Coulibaly – Power Forward
- Vafessa Fofana – Forward
- Guy Landry Edi – Shooting Guard
- Charles Abouo – Shooting Guard
- Frezus Zerbo – Center
- Tiegbe Bamba – Forward
- Bryan Pamba – Point Guard
- Mohamed Kone – Center
- Deon Thompson – Power Forward
- Abraham Sie – Point Guard
Poland Roster:
- Aleksander Balcerowski – Center
- Aaron Cel – Power Forward
- Karol Gruszecki – Shooting Guard
- Adam Hrycaniuk – Center
- Lukasz Koszarek – Point Guard
- Damian Kulig – Power Forward
- Kamil Laczynski – Point Guard
- Dominik Olejniczak – Center
- Mateusz Ponitka – Shooting Guard
- A.J. Slaughter – Point Guard
- Michal Sokolowski – Small Forward
- Adam Waczynski – Small Forward
Venezuela Roster:
- Luis Bethelmy – Power Forward
- Michael Carrera – Power Forward
- Pedro Chourio – Shooting Guard
- Nestor Colmenares – Power Forward
- Windi Graterol – Center
- Heissler Guillent – Point Guard
- Dwight Lewis – Small Forward
- Anthony Perez – Forward
- Miguel Ruiz – Power Forward
- Gregory Vargas – Point Guard
- Jose Vargas – Small Forward
- Jhornan Zamora – Shooting Guard
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China Roster:
- Abudurexiti Abudushalamu – Forward
- Xiaochuan Di – Forward
- Shuo Fang – Guard
- Ailun Guo – Guard
- Zhao Jiwei – Point Guard
- Kelanbaike Makan
- Sun Minghui – Guard
- Zhou Qi – Center
- Junfei Ren – Center
- Zhelin Wang – Center
- Jianlian Yi – Center
- Rui Zhao – Guard
Group A schedule for round one:
Of note all game times are listed in GMT plus eight hours – if you are in the ES time zone it translates to plus 12 hours as GMT is four hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.
August 31st:
Poland versus Venezuela – 16:00 GMT +8
Cote d’Ivoire versus Team China – 20:00 GMT +8
September 2nd:
Venezuela versus Cote d’Ivoire – 16:00 GMT +8
China versus Poland – 20:00 GMT +8
September 4th:
Cote d’Ivoire versus Poland – 16:00 GMT +8
Venezuela versus China- 20:00 GMT +8
Next. Every Thunder players best game of the 2018-2019 season. dark
This is the weakest group of the eight in the tournament with Cote d’Ivoire ranked 32nd, Venezuela ranks 26th, and Poland ranks 16th. China comes in ranked 13th, the highest in this group. If the FIBA ranking is accurate then expect Poland and China to move into the second round.