Serbia captures last EuroBasket bid for FIBA World Cup

Serbia locked up the final 2013 EuroBasket bid to the 2014 FIBA World Cup Saturday, wrapping up international tournament season with just four spots left in next summer’s big tournament. Serbia beat Italy Saturday, joining France, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Spain (the host country), as the European countries that have earned a bid to the World Cup.

Below is the full list of countries that have already qualified for the 2014 FIBA World Cup.

The qualification tournaments are all set, meaning the last four “wild card” spots are the only way for teams to qualify for the World Cup that aren’t on the list above. The two-week tournament will start Aug. 30, 2014, when the United States will try to defend their title from 2010.

FIBA awards the four wild card spots, and can’t select more than three teams from any international zone. How they actually determine who gets the Wild Card spots is something of a mystery. There’s no explanation on FIBA’s official “How Teams Qualify” page, and Wikipedia merely states that “FIBA is prohibited from selecting more than three teams from the same continental zone and to select teams that did not participate in qualifying either through choice or FIBA-mandated suspension.” One would assume they pick the highest-ranked teams that haven’t qualified -- hello, Greece -- but it looks like we’ll have to wait to find out.

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