Top 10 Interesting Facts About the U-19 Basketball World Cup

CAIRO – 2 July 2017: With the U-19 Basketball World Cup underway in Cairo from July 1 to July 9, Egypt Today decided to report about the Top 10 Interesting Facts in the U-19 Basketball World Cup.

The following are the top 10 interesting facts about the tournament:

The United States are the record holders of the tournament, winning on six of the 13 occasions which include the last two times. Their last loss goes back to 2011.

Argentina managed to participate in all tournaments except one in 1987. However, this time they are going to play replacing the suspended Brazilian team.

New Zealand is the only team competing for the first time in the tournament.

This is the first time that the tournament is hosted in the African continent.

Japan will compete in the tournament for the first time since 1999.

Players to watch in this tournament are: Silvio Soussa (Angola), Arnoldas Kulboka and Tadas Sedekerskis (Lithuania), Mohamed Youssef and Ahmed Khalaf (Egypt), Hamidou Diallo and Brandon Mccoy (USA).

Spain enters the tournament having only won one title, in 1999.

The French are the champions of the 2016 U-18 European Champions, and will play in the tournament for the first time since 2007; during that tournament they came in third place.

Lithuania is expected to surprise many people because they have many talented players. They enter the tournament as the runner ups of the 2016 U-18 European Championships.

Canada makes their sixth consecutive appearance. However, they face a problem in the quarter finals having been knocked out from the confederations cup in three of their last four appearances in the tournament.

The Egyptian hosts started the tournament on July 1 with a 67-65 victory over Puerto Rico.