Meanwhile, in Europe ...

Good morning. It's a bloggy Tuesday. Let's basketball.

Your Occasional EuroBasket Update

Eight of the 16 slots in the EuroBasket 2025 knockout round have been secured. The teams moving on so far are: Turkiye, Serbia, Latvia, Germany, Lithuania, Finland, Greece and Poland. Montenegro can advance with a win over 0-4 Great Britain on Wednesday. The winner of Wednesday's Estonia vs. Portugal tilt will move on, too. There are two games remaining for teams in Groups C and D, but it looks like Spain, Italy, Israel and France, leaving two spots available for teams with one win right now. Luka Doncic's Slovenia squad likely needs to be beat Iceland and Israel to survive. And even then, they might finish fourth in the group, which means facing Giannis Antetokounmpo or Spain in the Round of 16. Yikes!

Poland's the surprise story of the tournament so far, having beaten Slovenia and Israel and facing a showdown with France on Tuesday (2:30 PM Eastern). Jordan Loyd, who won an NBA championship as a two-way player with the Raptors, is averaging 28 points per game for Poland, which is spending its group stage in Katowice in the southern portion of the nation. No relation to Jewell Loyd, by the way. I checked.

The biggest story, though, is Bogdan Bogdanovic tearing his hamstring and ending his run for Serbia early to head back to Los Angeles for assessment and repair. Bogdanovic is one of the biggest international risers in the NBA – he's so much more powerful all-around in FIBA play than in the league, like Dennis Schroder – and his absence certainly hurts Serbia's quest to get a gold for Nikola Jokic. It'll also hurt the Clippers if he misses the start of the season. This is why NBA teams try to insist on their players skipping summer tournaments that aren't the World Cup or the Olympics (and even then).

There's always a shiny object in these tournaments, too, and this year it might be Finnish teen Miikka Muurinen, who can absolutely fly.