Ball in Europe – European Basketball Blog

The big news from Spain – with probable ramifications for much of Europe; so is basketball in 2010 – was the Valladolid-FC Barcelona result. Barça came to town, donned the wacky day-glo uniforms and decisively took down Valladolid by a score of 73-59 behind Terrence Morris’ 20 points and eight rebounds. It was all the hosts could do, notes ACB reportage, to hold their own until ultimately succumbing to superior talent:

El Regal FC Barcelona se llevó el triunfo de su visita a la cancha del Blancos de Rueda Valladolid que, aunque plantó cara durante muchos minutos, acabó cediendo ante la calidad de su rival.

Ho hum, you say? Perhaps it is just another déjà vu result from the ACB, but with the win, Barcelona clinches a spot in the Spanish league tournament bracket with some 10 games to go in the 2009-10 regular season. The officially-created highlight clip from the game runs below the break.

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Drop whatever you’re doing – when you have about 25 minutes free, that is – and head on over to the ACB’s official website for a sweet little mini-documentary on all the pageantry and play from this year’s Copa del Rey, perhaps the most exciting cup tournament in European domestic league hoops.

The Copa del Rey “docu” is mostly narration-free with smatterings of English and Spanish plus tons of that international language, basketball. Lack of drama in the final game aside, this production certainly assists in the rise of ACB.com as one of the world’s premier basketball league-based websites. Enjoy!

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Familiar sight in the finals

Congratulations this morning go out to Regal FC Barcelona, as the Blaugrana reaffirmed its dominant status in 2009-10 with a crushing 80-61 victory over Real Madrid.

What’s that? You say you missed out on the pageantry and action of Europe’s most exciting cup? Not surprising, seeing as how little coverage events like Copa del Rey get; oddly enough, with more folks-in-the-know than ever lining up to proclaim the ACB the world’s second-best basketball league, international TV coverage of Spanish basketball is as lame as ever. (Come on, Eurosport, surely you could have ponied up a few euros for the Copa final game at least…)

Well, thank God and/or Al Gore for YouTube! Here’s BiE’s collection of YouTubes, so eagerly posted by ACB enthusiasts – a huge thank you to all of the clip contributors, too, by the way; hope you’re reading – nearly immediately following the action. To the highlights!

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Huertas loves the Cup

The party’s already starting in Bilbao to be sure … after all, the Copa del Rey basketball tournament isn’t just a sporting event; heck, it’s not even just another national cup competition. Instead, the “King’s Cup” consumes much of the national population’s attention as determines the class of Europe’s top hoops superpower is confirmed. Concerts and revelry will be the order of the day against a pastiche of top-flight basketball.

Until Friday, though, everyone waits. And the press asks the questions and collects the quotes while practices seem to go on forever. The following is a selection of what’s on the minds of key players, coaches and pundits as the Copa del Rey hype buildup continues…

• “We are the champions and we must defend the title,” says Fernando San Emeterio in this piece on Baskonia of the same name. Teammate Marcelinho Huertas, meanwhile, finds Copa del Rey time to be “different from any league match” and uniquely Spanish: “En Italia no se vive de la misma manera. La ciudad no participaba de la Copa, ni mucho menos.”

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BiE supposes the only suspense with this award this year was how close things would get and who placed second. So, after the ho-hum announcement that Pau Gasol was chosen FIBA Europe Men’s Player of the Year for a second consecutive time, we today know the answers. In order, then: Not very close at all, and Dirk Nowitzki.

Nowitzki finished second in the final tabulation with a 0.078 rating against Gasol’s mark of 0.335; Milos Teodosic was third at 0.050. The public saw things a little differently than the experts, however, with Nowitzki just fourth in the popular vote, with The Dastardly One topped by Marcin Gortat (who finished 12th overall) and Erazem Lorbek (5th overall). Meanwhile, fourth-place overall finisher Vassilis Spanoulis got no respect from the voters, earning just enough ballots to place 14th with the crowd. (And you thought NBA All-Star Game voting was weird!)

Check out the final standings as per FIBA’s calculations, with the players’ finish in the popular vote for the award in parentheses following.

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One more announcement from the FIBA folks today and this one’s surely no surprise: For an unprecedented third straight year, the honor of FIBA Europe Young Men’s Player of the Year goes to Spanish wunderkind Ricky Rubio.

Rubio’s win makes Spain two-for-two on FIBA Europe accolades this year and, with Pau Gasol expected to bookend his 2008 Men’s Player of the Year with one for 2009 by dint of his country’s win at Eurobasket 2009 and his club’s win in the 2009 NBA Championship, one can’t help but wonder if Spain (and Ana Montañana) pulls off the sweep. We’ll find out on Friday…

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On a bit of a slow news day, Ball in Europe can at least offer you some the top five plays from this weekend’s ACB action. The official website promises much “shameless delight” in this grab bag of magic passing and alley-oops. As they rhetorically ask, “¿Te lo vas a perder?”

Click “Continue Reading” for video featuring Marko Jaric, Novica Velickovic and Ricky Rubio alternatively getting burned and providing the sweet feed underneath for Barcelona against DKV Joventut.

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This story is just in and so congratulations are just going out from Ball in Europe to Alba Torrens, who has taken the first of FIBA’s four annual “player of the year” awards, taking the 2009 Young Women’s Player of the Year. Finishing behind Torrens in the voting were, in order, Louice Halvarrson, Jelena Milovanovic and Gintare Petronyte.

Official FIBA press release follows the break.

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Navarro: Gran Canaria's nightmare

Guess FC Barcelona does have that “killer instinct” after all.

Just three days after head coach Xavi Pascual called out his team a bit for lacking “el instinto asesino” following a “mere” ten-point win over Maroussi BC and a week after Valencia brought Barça’s 26-game winning streak to a halt with a three-point dagger, the Spanish juggernaut showed no mercy in dispatching Gran Canaria 2014 by a score of 105-55 on Sunday.

Gran Canaria (now 9-11 and tied for ninth place on the ACB table) was the team that precipitated that win streak, when in October, the team defended its home court against Barcelona and held on for a 67-65 win. That would be the last loss for Barça until late January.

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Mickael: Baller, blogger, gravity-defier

Quite the busy week in basketball land this week, eh? Even if you did follow the slew of happenings over this seven days – the opening weeks of Euroleague and Eurocup Final 16 play, the naming of NBA All-Star teams, FC Barcelona’s streak ending in the ACB, the Greg Oden and Paul Shirley scandals, as well as the usual highlight-reel play from LeBron James and Kobe Bryant – surely some stuff from the bloated blogosphere and cram-packed interweb escaped even the most thorough web surfer’s notice.

A few stories and videos for your week-ending amusement follow.

• The best player blog to follow out there right now is probably Pete Mickael’s. Not only does Mickael manage to regularly post two to four entries per month, his entries are well-written, insightful and thoughtful; Mickael may comment on the state of Euroleague attendance, the Gilbert Arenas flap, living in Europe, or just plain playing ball in the ACB and Euroleague. This week’s post features his take on the Valencia-FC Barcelona game: Barça’s first loss in 26 games.

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