Men's Basketball

Aug. 27, 2003

FRANCE - Gonzaga University junior forward Ronny Turiaf was among the 12-man roster selected to compete for France in the upcoming Eurobasket (European Championships) that run Sept. 5-14 in Stockholm.

Turiaf, who competed for the U-20 European Championship bronze medalists last summer, averaged 15.6 ppg and 5.6 rpg for the Bulldogs last season. He was named to the All-West Coast Conference first team and was a National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) second-team selection.

Karim Souchu was the unlucky 13th man on Wednesday as coach Alain Weisz announced his 12-man French team for Eurobasket.

Weisz had trimmed his squad to 13 after the Tournoi de Strasbourg and Souchu was the man who had to miss out when Weisz unveiled his party to go to Sweden.

"It was a painful choice, Karim had done very well in the warm-up period and I was really torn until the last moment," said Weisz.

Four NBA players will feature in the squad for France, who won the Olympic silver medal behind the United States in Sydney. They are newly-crowned NBA champion with the San Antonio Spurs Tony Parker, Tariq Abdul-Wahad (Dallas Mavericks), Jerome Moiso (Toronto Raptors) and Boris Diaw-Riffiod (Atlanta Hawks).

France will play its first game Sept. 5 against Bosnia & Herzegovina in a Group A game. Other teams in Group A are Slovenia and Italy. The second and third place teams from each group will play elimination games to join the four group winners in the quarterfinals.