BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

From Sweden, sportswriter/broadcaster Magnus Dahlborn checks in with BallinEurope today to give us reportage on the recently completed Nordic Championship tournament, which saw the title awarded to undefeated Team Finland.

Due to the tragic events in Norway, a sombre feeling overlay the past weekend when the Nordic Championships between national teams from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland began in Sundsvall. The Norwegian team came and participated well nevertheless, considering that their senior national program in basketball has been non-existent the past few years.

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Who would have thought with domestic leagues grinding to a close (and a start of playoff rounds) and as the Euroleague Final Four approaches that the country garnering headlines in international circles would be … Iceland?

How do you defend this?

Oh yes, you knew this would happen; since everything from state funerals to troop deployments in Afghanistan are being delayed thanks to that Icelandic volcanic spewage, European sports are predictably also affected. While folks in the British Isles and throughout Europe get surlier at airports experiencing crazy delays, travel for European sports teams is slowing to a crawl. Or sometimes not at all.

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BallinEurope has established a list of all National Champions in the various European leagues as they are known so far. If you have results to add or know who was named Final MVPs in a European league, feel free to add this in the comments so that we can update the list.

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• Theo Papaloukas STARTED the game of the Russian Superleague this weekend against Unics Kazan. Maybe he finally was doing well in practice that his coach gave him the starting job or it was only because of the absence of Ramunas Siskauskas.
• Harun “Pegasus” Erdenay is back on the courts
• Jon Stefansson, one of my favorite Euroleague Fantasy players, was pretty active this week on the Internet with a FIBA Europe interview and a presence in the Top 10 moves of the Lega.
• One of the top Greek talents is leading his NCAA team to the Finals of the Season Opening NIT. Kosta Koufos, who dominated during the U18 Championships this summer in Spain is already considered as the newest Greek God by Dick Weiss.
• If Earl Boykins is really going to sign with Lietuvos Rytas, he should check this interview with Terrell McIntyre who is another little big man in the Euroleague.
• The Euroleague website is once again fooling around. Just check what happens when you want to look at a team’s specific page.
• The Eurobasket.com Top 100 Ranking is back, for men and for women. Some surprises to me are the third place for Khimky, a 10th place for Panellinios and also the fact of Türk Telekom being the best Turkish team at place number 21 way ahead of Efes who is only at 42.
• R&R? Rock and Roll? No! Rudy (Fernandez) and Ricky (Rubio) combined for 50pts this weekend in a huge win against Marc (Gasol)’s Akasvayu Girona.
• Jamal Sampson, the nephew of Ralph Sampson is trying out with Frankfurt who signed also Ayinde Ubaka
• The Lithuanian forward Martynas Pocius is impressing some American bloggers. By the way Martynas, your dunks look way better than your suit

EDIT: After just two months of BallinEurope.com we already got our first award! The German NBA Magazine BASKET elected us to the “web site of the month”! – Well, we knew it was just a matter of  time, right? So keep these awards coming!