BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

You want a buzzer-beater? BallinEurope’s got your buzzer-beater right here, courtesy of Benetton Basket’s Jobey Thomas.

First, to set the table a bit for the thriller-capping final bucket in this week’s Eurocup match between the visiting Italian side and Lokomotiv Kuban: Benetton had trailed throughout the Group L matchup before finally putting together a 14-1 run to close out the third quarter and enter the final ten minutes up 55-53.

After some nip-and-tuck, Benetton found itself with a two-point deficit with 3.4 seconds remaining on the game clock. Taking the ball out of bounds after a timeout, Sani Becirovic appeared to have been ordered to look for a game-winning shot opportunity. (Gutsy call by coach Aleksandar Djordjevic; while common wisdom says to play for the win on the road, still. Gutsy.)

With 19 points already to his credit, Thomas broke free from his defender thanks to beautiful pick by Benjamin Ortner and found an open spot on the left side beyond the arc. Though Ali Traore came over to defend Thomas, well, just recall that old basketball axiom about never leaving your feet too soon…

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So 2011 may have been few people’s favorite year personally, European basketball fans have certainly got to be taking solace in the fact that the past 12 months featured a seriously great run of Continental-flavored hoops.

To wit, in 2011, we enjoyed:

• an exciting round of Euroleague playoffs which included FC Barcelona’s surprising tournament-round exit and culminated in storied franchise Panathinaikos bagging its third EL trophy in five years;

• in domestic leagues, another weird Bundesliga playoff tournament, another controversial Greek tourney, and from Italy and Spain second-place shockers Bennet Cantù and Bizkaia Bilbao Basket advancing;

• lots of European superstars battling it out in the NBA playoffs, particularly on the Western Conference side, with Tony Parker, Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng and of course Dirk Nowitzki proving so key to their teams’ successes (or lack thereof);

• the Eurobasket 2011 tournament hosted in the world’s basketball-maddest country which ultimately inspired Team Serbia coach Dusan Ivkovic to opine that “this has been the strongest European Championship in history…” (and, judging only from the star content alone, BiE would probably agree, despite a general loathing for such hyperbole directly after an event);

• some awesome schadenfreude-laced moments as NBA refugees came to play on the Continent during the player lockout, plus all the incredibly amusing speculation on names beginning with Kobe Bryant; and finally

• the close to the 2011-12 Euroleague regular season with a week 10 that featured some crazy dogfights for entry and positioning in the Top 16 round, including a great do-or-die game between Emporio Armani Milano and Partizan Belgrade.

Olympic Games or no, how can basketball year 2011 be topped? On the first day of the new year, BallinEurope takes a last brief look back at the most popular stories we ran in 2011. Relive one killer 365 days of European roundball once more below.

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Courtesy BC.Rytas.lt and Balltime.net, below run the video highlights of last night’s Eurocup match between Lietuvos Rytas and Le Mans Sarthe. That is all.

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A few players returning to the NBA made expected final appearances with their European clubs last night as the mass departure to the ‘States begins. BallinEurope runs down a handful of individual performances from Adriatic League, Eurocup, and FIBA Eurochallenge games.

• Big shot of the night, NBA-related or no, was certainly Mehmet Okur’s three-point dagger to give Turk Telekom the 83-81 win over Pinar Karsiyaka. Reports FIBA Europe in part: “With Turkish basketball still talking about the 50-point explosion by Okur’s former Utah Jazz teammate Deron Williams for Beşiktaş last week, Okur capped another solid performance with a long-range shot that gave the Ankara team an 83-81 triumph on Tuesday.

“Utah Jazz big man Okur, like New Jersey Nets guard Williams, is to soon head back to the United States following Saturday’s announcement that the lockout is set to end this week.

“Okur had 14 points and 10 rebounds in Izmir against Karsiyaka. … His free throw had given Turk Telekom an 80-79 advantage with 31 seconds to go, but Karsiyaka went back out in front when Alper Saruhan landed a jumper.

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BallinEurope bids adieu to the all-too-brief wackiness that was the ENBA: A period of time shorter than Allen Iverson’s career with Beşiktaş, though for a sweet, brief while it seemed like forever … ah, the feeling of a too-fast love affair dragged down by unfeeling reality, leaving only fond memories and bitter tears to … o, sorry. BiE got a bit wound up there.

In riding the wave of sentimentality to the shore, BiE today presents the virtual scrapbook of 10 favorite individual performances from locked-out NBA players. (Not included are those NBA guys who were off-season free agents; therefore no appearances by, say, Nenad Krstic, or, sadly, Adam Morrison are forthcoming.)

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“No basketball anymore”? Are you serious? The next two days will see some 34 games played out in the top three European basketball competitions: Euroleague, EuroCup and FIBA Eurochallenge.

Below, BallinEurope presents some links, highlight clips and like on some of the competing teams starring Igor Rakocevic, Tiago Splitter, D.J. Strawberry and that Williams guy, among others. O, if only BiE had time to properly cover all this basketball … sorry, the NB-what?

• Rod Higgins of the Basketball Post provides much food for thought going into Montepaschi Siena’s game against Unics Kazan on how Igor Rakocevic affects the Italian side’s game plan: Has Ferdinando Minucci sacrificed trademark defensive trickery at the cost of a faster game with another shooter?

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Here’s more fuel for the fire vis-à-vis American players in Europe: Re-imports Tony Parker and Ronny Turiaf were notables in last night’s Eurocup opening night for Asvel Villeurbanne as the French side overcame 2009-10 champion Valencia Basket.

Whoever questions NBA stars’ ability to adapt to the European game may see Parker’s performance of last night to be a partial answer: The locked-out San Antonio Spur essentially iced EuroCup Player of the Week honors in scoring 34 points for Asvel, including 13 in his team’s high-flying 29-point fourth quarter. Parker also dished five assists and added one steal to his stat line.

Meanwhile, Ronny Turiaf came off the bench to become one of Asvel’s five double-digit scorers, contributing 12 points and five rebounds over 25 minutes in the win.

Official game writeup follows the break.

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Happy 10th birthday, Eurocup! The Continent’s no. 2 club competition will tip off season no. 10 tonight with seven matches, definitely highlighted by the showdown between Tony Parker’s Asvel Villeurbanne against a Valencia Basket side bringing in a lineup which includes Victor Claver and A.J. Ogilvy – not to mention Team France’s Nando de Colo and Florent Pietrus.

Official press release on the giddy night and highlight video from last year’s Unics Kazan-Cajasol final runs below the break.

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For those of you wondering about Ronny Turiaf’s debut with Asvel Basket, well, it was a bit of a mixed bag of results on Sunday. After resolving insurance issues, the locked-out New York Knick started for Asvel as Tony Parker’s side hosted defending LNB champions/ Euroleague team SLUC Nancy.

Turiaf looked good enough in his first game since injuring his hand in a friendly match leading up to the 2011 EuroBasket tournament, going for nine points (including one effusive dunk early on; see below Asvel-based YouTube clip), eight rebounds (four offensive), three assists and five fouls drawn in 25 minutes of court time.

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Whether you know him as Scal, Mr. Hustle or the White Mamba, Benetton Treviso fans recognize new signee Brian Scalabrine as “one of us” – and with good reason. The former Boston Celtic is enjoying a banner year with the Eurocup side and has established himself as a bona fide team leader in Serie A play. BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Enrico Cellini, takes a look at the phenomenon.

It is something of an informal tradition for Italian basketball fans to sing songs and chants to support their teams during basketball games, and a very short while passed before fans of Benetton Treviso dedicated a personal chant to Brian Scalabrine. They immediately opted for “Scalabrine uno di noi!” (“Scalabrine is one of us”).

Scalabrine is paying back his new fans’ warm welcome. On Sunday, he was decisive in the Treviso’s victory against Cantù: despite scoring only six points (though with only one missed shot; Scal was 2-of-3 in the game), he grabbed 15 rebounds, dished three assists and provided plenty of smart plays that do not go in the statistics. In the previous match against Avellino, Scal accounted for 18 points with eight field goals out of ten attempts.

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