The distinctly un-Christmas atmosphere has tinged the international competition ever since the craziness that followed Cyprus side Apoel Nicosia’s 82-80 victory over TBL team Pınar Karşıyaka on the island on December 21. Immediately following the game’s conclusion, the hometown fans threw rocks, chairs and other debris onto the court, according to club executives in attendance.

(The below video certainly bears this out, by the way.)

Worse yet, the violence was far from over, as Pınar Karşıyaka players and local police were allegedly bludgeoned by wooden stick-toting “fans” (and that “fans” is in quotes because folks like this really shouldn’t be sporting the title unless meant in the original sense of the English word, i.e. shorthand for “fanatics”) on the way to and even inside the locker room.

“Some” injuries to players were reported by FIBA, and the Turkish team was reportedly sequestered within the stadium for a few hours afterward.

FIBA Europe was swift in reacting, the next day slapping the Apoel club with a penalty of maximum fines plus an order that the subsequent three home games against European teams be played before no spectators.

In response to the financial beatdown, Cyprus Basketball Federation secretary-general Emilios Theodosiou was contrite, apologizing to the organizational body and decrying that “Such acts of hooliganism are an enemy to our sport and should find us all on the same side in the battle against it.”

Yet the ill will between the teams continues both in diplomatic channels and in cyberspace – and early on, the Turks are enjoying a serious advantage in the latter.

No less a figure than Turkey prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took time yesterday to denounce the game’s aftermath as evidence of rampant racism in Cyprus. Before his own parliament, Erdogan declared that “It is worrying that racism and violence against Turks … is rising in Greek Cyprus while we are striving for dialogue and reconciliation.

“Even this single incident demonstrates who favors peace and who does not want to give peace a chance on the island,” continued Erdogan.

Last week, Cyprus president Demetris Christofias took a hardline stance against the “so-called fans,” blaming them for “fostering Turkish propaganda” against Greek Cypriots internationally.

Meanwhile, in cyberspace, over 100 Cyprus-based Greek company websites have been hacked and gone offline in the past two days. Left in the wake of the hack is a black screen emblazoned with the trilingual (Greek/Turkish/English) slogan “No terror in sports” along with the Turkish national flag and the Pınar Karşıyaka logo.

THough Cyprus’ Anti-Cyber Crime Office this morning claims all 100+ affected websites are up and running as normal, more attacks are being prepared for.

BallinEurope won’t attempt to delve into the historical details surrounding such tensions and the aforementioned “dialogue and reconciliation,” but Wikipedia on the situation says in part that “In 1974, following … an attempted coup d’êtat[,] Turkey invaded and occupied the northern portion of [Cyprus]. The intercommunal violence and subsequent Turkish invasion led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Cypriots and the establishment of a separate Turkish Cypriot political entity in the north. These events and the resulting political situation are matters of ongoing dispute.”

Surely FIBA Europe officials are happy that Pınar Karşıyaka and Apoel are unlikely to meet again this season.

And, um, happy holidays…?

Does Vassilakopoulos have a secret plan?

The rumor first popped up a couple of days ago on Talk Basket and an intriguing bit of gossip it is, too. According to that website, the Hellenic Basketball Federation (EOK) and former FIBA Europe president George Vassilakopoulos are advancing the idea of a Mediterranean basketball league which would include teams from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Serbia, and Turkey.

This is an excellent idea indeed in BallinEurope’s opinion, for, as Talk Basket points out, most of the domestic leagues in the above-listed nations are dominated year in and year out by a select team or two. We’re talking perennial championship teams like Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Efes Pilsen, Fenerbahçe Ülker, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Partizan Belgrade, Montepaschi Siena and Apoel Nicosia: Franchises which would appear to have evolved beyond fair competition in their leagues.

Unfortunately, this story is thus far highly unsubstantiated beyond some shaky forum mutterings. No reportage on the prospective Mediterranean Basketball Association has been printed on the websites of the Greek Basketball Federation, the Greek League (which under the theoretical plan would shed altogether four top-division teams that would be devoted full-time to MBA play), or Greek-language sports media site Sport.gr.

Just in case you were wondering, the MediterraneanLeague.com domain name is already taken and cleverly redirects surfers to SportVideo.gr.

Of course it’s totally possible that Talk Basket has a clean scoop on this story: The folks there have bagged some big headlines previously. For the present, however, BiE readers would be prudent to take this story with a grain of salt or two – after all, this league might be too logical, too rational, too exciting … and maybe even a bit too competitive for some of these perpetual runaway championship clubs…?

If you hear/read anything on the MBA, please give BiE a shout.

• FIBA and Eurobasket.com in international incident? As attempts to unify the island of Cyprus continue, the politics of basketball may be interfering. A Turkish news outlet known as “Today’s Zaman” reports that:

“…a decision by popular European basketball portal www.eurobasket.com to include the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (KKTC) basketball league in its reviews have been another source of uneasiness for the Greek Cypriot government. Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou has appealed to the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), asking for their intervention to withdraw the reviews referring to the league in the KKTC, which is not internationally recognized. However, editors of the Web site refused to back down and said they would continue publishing similar reviews.”

• Noah’s stock rising. After Brandon Jennings, Joakim Noah has received much love from the NBA hype machine this season and why not? Check out the dynamism on full display here with the one-handed jam against the Utah Jazz.

• Upset! (And other good games, too.) Arguably the best day of Euroleague action since the opener, Week 5 Day 2 featured the Partizan upset of Olympiacos and that nice Baskonia-CSKA Moscow match. Slickly produced official video here.

• Changes coming to British wheelchair squad. Britain continues to take pride in its wheelchair basketball team which took third place at the 2009 European championship in Poland. Simon Munn, 41-year-old team captain, discusses his future plans and impending retirement.

• Finally, just because, here’s something called the Endorphin Basketball Association. You gotta love YouTube, eh?

And it will be the hosts that are considered the favorites in this year’s edition of the games. Built around former European top player JoJo Garcia, the Cypriot team should be able to overcome their disappointment of two years ago, where they only earned the bronze medal.

Playing at their home arena Eleftheria Indoor Hall in Nicosia, they immediately faced a huge test against Luxembourg, another medal candidate, but ultimately overcame the team around former Tennessee Tech player Larrie Smith, 80-57.

The team from the Grand-Duchy presents one of the strongest teams in the recent years and features a multitude of current or former college basketball players. Team Cyprus will be led by the best scorer of their own league, Nelson Delgado, who helped the team to three wins over Albania (without Ermal Kuqo) in the preparation.

Finally, there is Iceland, also a potential tournament winner. Without their top star Jon Stefansson, who is still playing in the semifinals of the Italian League, the Nordics did not have much problem opening the tournament with a win over Malta behind the scoring efforts of veteran Pall Axel Vilbergsson, who scored 20 in the opener. Team Malta, meanwhile, had already struggled even before the opening game, as their bus driver did not find the way to correct gym for the pre-game practice.

You can follow the tournament through Live Stats on the official website of the Games.

For the calculations, only the regular season, the Top 16 and the playoffs have been taken into account. The preliminary round has not been analyzed. Due to the structure of the competitions, not all teams played the same amount of games, and unfortunately the attendance figure for the decisive playoff game between Virtus Bologna and Telekom Baskets Bonn is missing. So here we go for the list of the 32 participating teams.

Source: FIBA Europe Boxscores, BIE Calculations

Ural Great Perm from Russia has the best average of the competition, finishing just in front of Telekom Baskets Bonn from Germany. Third place goes to Cholet Basket from France while Virtus Bologna earns fourth spot.

The 96 games of the regular season averaged 1737.7 people per game, while 48 Top 16 games averaged 2161.2 spectators per game.

The game with the largest attendance was Ural Great’s playoff game against BC Triumph, with 5000 people while the game with the lowest attendance was a Keravnos Nicosia (Cyprus) home game against Ural Great Perm, with only 70 official spectators recorded.

The champions of the respective countries may be found in bold when the final is already decided. And the MVP cited is the Finals MVP, if such an award has been given.

Albania: ?

Austria: Fürstenfeld Panthers 3-2 Oberwart Gunners

Belarus: Vitalyur Minsk 3-0 OZAA Osipovichi

Belgium: Spirou Charleroi 3-0 Euphony Bree

Bosnia-Herzegovina: Bosna Sarajevo 2-1 Igokea Partizan Aleksandrovac

Bulgaria: Lukoil Academic 3-0 Balkan Botevgrad

Croatia: Zadar 3-2 KK Split

Cyprus: Keravnos 3-2 Apoel Nicosia

Czech Republic: Nymburk 4-1 Geofin

Denmark: Bakken Bears 4-0 Svendborg Rabbits

Estonia: Tartu Rock 4-0 BC Kalev (MVP: Brian Cusworth)

Finland: Honka Playboys 3-1 Kouvot Kouvola (MVP: Akeem Scott)

France: SLUC Nancy 1-0 Chorale de Roanne (MVP: Jeff Greer)

FYR Macedonia: Feni Industrija 4-3 Strumica

Georgia: Energy Rustavi 3-1 Avia Tblisi

Germany: ALBA Berlin 3-1 Telekom Baskets Bonn (MVP: Julius Jenkins)

Greece: Panathinaikos 3-2 Olympiakos

Hollang: Myguide Amsterdam 4-3 Eiffel Towers (MVP: Peter van Paassen)

Hungary: Falco Szombathely 3-1 Kormend

Iceland: Kevflavik 3-0 Snaefell (MVP: Gunnar Einarson)

Ireland: Abrakebabra Tralee Tigers 1-0 DART Killester (MVP: Michael Quirke)

Israel: Hapoel Holon 1-0 Maccabi Tel Aviv

Italy: Montepaschi Siena 4-1 Lottomatica Roma (MVP: Terrell McIntyre)

Kosovo: Sigal Prishtina 3-2 BC Peja

Latvia: Barons/LMT Riga 4-1 ASK Riga (MVP: Armands Skele)

Lithuania: Zalgiris Kaunas 4-1 Lietuvos Rytas (MVP: Marcus Brown)

Luxembourg: Sparta Bertrange 2-0 Musel Pikes (MVP: Larrie Smith)

Malta: BUPA Luxol 2-1 Compleet IS

Moldova: ?

Montenegro: Buducnost Podgorica 3-0 Mogren Budva

Norway: Asker Aliens 3-0 Harstad Vikings

Poland: Prokom Trefl Sopot 4-3 Turow Zgorzelec

Portugal: Ovarense Aerosoles 4-3 FC Porto Ferpinta (MVP: Graham Brown)

Romania: CSU Asesoft Ploesti 4-3 UMobitelco Cluj

Russia: CSKA Moscow 3-0 Khimky Moscow (MVP: JR Holden)

Scotland: Edinburgh Kings

Serbia: Partizan Belgrade 3-1 Hemofarm Vrsac

Slovakia: Pezinok 3-1 Inter Bratislava

Slovenia: Olimpija Ljubljana 3-1 Helios Domzale

Spain: TAU Cerimca Vitoria 3-0 AXA FC Barcelona (MVP: Pete Mickeal)

Sweden: Solna Vikings 3-0 Sundsvall Dragons

Switzerland: Benetton Fribourg 3-0 Lugano Tigers

Turkey: Fenerbahce Ülker Istanbul 4-1 Türk Telekom Ankara

Ukraine: Azovmash Mariupol 3-1 BC Kyiv (MVP: Robert Archibald)

United Kingdom: Guildford Heat 1-0 Milton Keynes Lions

Aside from all champions and runners-up, it’s always nice to hear the names of teams I am not that familiar with and of course, I have my favorites: the Svendborg Rabbits and the Abrakebabra Tigers Tralee.

Was the FIBA Eurocup Final Four a goal before the season for Dexia Mons-Hainaut?

Specifically no. But our goal was to qualify out of the group phase to the quarterfinals and from there anything can happen. Having said that we do not enter any game or competition without the mind-set of winning a championship.

Would you have preferred to play against one of the other semifinalists at this moment?

Not necessarily. The only issue with playing Limassol was that we had to play them in front of their fans but our players have risen such challenges before.

Your roster looks pretty equilibrated. Don’t you miss a clear go-to-guy to lead the team in such a tournament?

Possibly, but any player on the court is a go to guy for us. If he can play, we want him to have the ball at the key moments. There are times where our lack of a star player may have hurt us but we are happy with the players we have for this team.

Are the players aware of the probably hostile atmosphere they will face against the hosts?

Yes, but they are experienced and quite frankly very laid back. They have all seen this type of crowd before.

The team is led by the Serbian forward Milutin Aleksic who is the top scorer, rebounder, stealers and passer of the game. Looks like a pretty skilled player. Personally, I have never heard anything about this guy, so I am pretty surprised about this huge numbers he is averaging in the FIBA Eurocup.

He is supported by the experienced American guard Duan Woodward and by not less than three French players: Ali Bouziane, Karim Sochu and Maxime Zianveni. The last one was the identification guy for SLUC Nancy for years and he wanted to sign somewhere in Europe finally. And lots of people were laughing in France when he signed in Cyprus. Well, Air Max showed all those people that he did the right choice as he can now add another European trophy to the Korac Cup he won with Nancy in 2002.