The draw ceremony held on January 30, 2011 in the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, Vilnius, divided the qualified teams into four groups of six, groups A, B, C, and D. The hosts of the evening were Jurgita Jurkutė and Vytautas Rumšas. The balls were drawn by retired basketball players European champions and Olympic medalists Stasys Stonkus, Modestas Paulauskas, Dino Meneghin, Sergėjus Jovaiša, Alexander Anatolyevich Volkov and Arvydas Sabonis. A special concert followed the draw where a song was dedicated for each of the participating nations.
It was decided that Group A games will take place in Panevėžys, Group B in Šiauliai, Group C in Alytus and Group D in Klaipėda.
Preliminary round
Teams play each other once. The top three placed teams move on to the next round. In case of tie on points, direct matches between (points and goal average, i.e. points for/points against) are taken into acount, if still tied goal average in all matches will be used as tiebreaker and not point difference.
EuroBasket 2011 Group E
The group composed of the three best ranked teams from Groups A and B. Teams coming from the same initial group didn't play again vs. each other, but "carried" the results of the matches played between them for the first round.
Four teams with the best records advanced to the quarter finals.
Group F
Main article: EuroBasket 2011 Group F
The group composed of the three best ranked teams from groups C and D. Teams coming from the same initial group didn't play again vs. each other, but "carried" the results of the matches played between them for the first round.
The four teams with the best records advanced to the quarter finals.
Logo
Public contest was introduced to create the logo for the competition. 49 designs were presented initially to the organizers and the best 3 were sent to FIBA Europe, which selected the winning design. The author of it is designer Kęstutis Koira. The EuroBasket 2011 logo was unveiled on the 24th of January, 2009 in Cido Arena, Panevėžys, during the final game of Lithuanian Basketball Federation Cup. It displays the Columns of Gediminas overlaid on a backboard.
Song
Lithuania is the first host country of EuroBasket to have an official EuroBasket song. A song Celebrate basketball written by Marijonas Mikutavičius and performed by Mia, Mantas Jankavičius and Marijonas Mikutavičius was chosen by a televoting in Lithuania. There are two versions of the song – Lithuanian[10] and English. Later, another version was added – "Nebetyli sirgaliai" (lit. The Fans are no Longer Quiet).
Special events
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Basketball enjoys extraordinary popularity in Lithuania. As such, many events were organized to mark the championship, including:
In the summer of 2011 a dribble marathon around whole Lithuania was organized. Groups of people would dribble from one town to the next one, where they would give the balls to another set of people who would then dribble to the next town and so on. Every town of Lithuania was visited with TV documenting the events every day. Among the people who took part in the event were the president of Lithuania, several ministers, mayors, sportsmen, opera and ballet stars and so on. In the end the 13 balls were given to the Lithuanian National Basketball team on August 29th of 2011.
On August 29, 2011, Lithuania set a new record for simultaneous dribbling, previously held by Poland. 60,000 Lithuanians from Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Alytus dribbled Molten balls simultaneously, beating Poland's record of 30,000 people.
Vilnius TV Tower observation deck was turned into a large basketball basket. It is made of lights that shine in the dark. The "basket" is 160 meters tall, higher than any other building in Lithuania.
Composer Vidmantas Bartulis and poet Gintaras Patackas wrote an oratorio for basketball called "That Space-like Feeling of Basketball" ("Tas kosminis krepšinio jausmas"). This oratorio, praising basketball and Kauno Žalgiris team, was performed during the opening of Kaunas Arena in August 16th of 2011.
Additionally, starting with the Spring of 2011, many of the TV and newspaper advertisements became basketball-oriented. Each of the cities where Eurobasket 2011 would take place received many minor details marking the championship: for example, the trash bins in Panevėžys were repainted to look like basketballs, an abandoned building in Vilnius had its windows covered by flags of the participant nations while balls were drawn on street pavement in some places.
Many ordinary Lithuanians decorated their cars with small Lithuanian flags flying above side windows (like during every other basketball championship). Flags covering the opposite side of the car mirrors are also popular. Some foreign fans who visted Lithuania during the championship adopted this practice as well.
Oracle
Major Lithuanian news company adopted the practice of predicting each Lithuania national basketball team match in the EuroBasket. Lazdeika the Crab serves as the oracle. The crab selects one of the two coconut shells to hide in when light is shined on it. Each of the two coconut shells has a country's flag – Lithuania's flag and opponent flag.
All about: EuroBasket 2011
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