A new qualification scheme for EuroBasket comes into place as teams look to earn spots in the summer of 2017.  As before, hosts qualify automatically, so the Czech Republic knows that it will be one of sixteen teams there.  Unlike previous editions, all of the other countries who wish to join must go through the qualifying process.  This is possible because qualification is held during the club season instead of the summer. Teams that were involved in global tournaments used to be given a break from qualifying to represent the continent on a wider scale.  The teams have been divided into nine groups with three groups containing three teams and six groups containing four teams.  Each winner of the group’s  double round robin advances.  The second place teams are then ranked with six of the nine taking the final places in the tournament.  In order to ensure a fair comparison between groups of different sizes, results against fourth place teams are removed before comparing teams.  The first two rounds of games will take place this Saturday and Wednesday.  There will also be two rounds of games in February with the qualification process wrapping up with two more rounds in November. [Read more…]