BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

BallinEurope will be live blogging tonight’s Final Four games from Paris, so please join in the fun! The chat will start up at about 5.30pm CET (that’s 11.30am EST just in case anyone on the other side is interested) and tipoff for the first game, CSKA Moscow vs. FC Barcelona (o boy o boy, that’ll be a good one) is scheduled for 6pm.

Click the “Continue Reading…” link to open up the chatbox and start entering your pithy and/or insightful comments. Here’s to hoping BiE will be hearing from you tonight!

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A quick collection of quotes for you, collected yesterday and today at various press conferences and media meetings. With just hours to go before tipoff, enjoy a bit of wit and wisdom from coaches and players on BallinEurope.

On Paris
“It is […] special to have the Final Four in Paris. This is the city that never sleeps, with a lot of life, the best place to organize this kind of competition.” – Partizan head coach Dusko Vujosevic

On playing in the Final Four
“The semifinal is the most difficult game for me, because everybody is thinking about the final. If you don’t respect your opponent in the semifinal, you don’t get to the final.” – CSKA Moscow head coach Evgeny Pashutin

“[Trajan] Langdon, [Ramunas] Siskauskas and [J.R.] Holden know what this is all about. They have played many Final Fours. I had to watch them all on TV, but now I can compete in one at age 19. I’m looking forward to it.” – Ricky Rubio

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Toni Kukoc: All over the Euroleague record books

Attention, all statistics addicts! With the time to tipoff running down steadily, BallinEurope this morning puts things into a little numerical perspective. Which players, coaches and teams will forever be immortalized in the record books when all is said and done at the 2010 Euroleague Final Four? Some measuring sticks for would-be heroes are listed below. Let the countdown begin!

12: Number of free throws made – in 13 attempts – by Manu Ginobili for Kinder Bologna in a losing effort back in 2002. The trips to line helped produce 27 points for Ginobili, which tied the modern-era mark for scoring in a Euroleague final, matching … Manu Ginobili of 2001. Antoine Rigaudeau also scored 27 for Zalgiris (ironically against Bologna) in 1999 while going 5-of-7 on threes; Zoran Savic in 1991 and Dejan Bodiroga in 2001 also accomplished the feat.

11: Number of blocks registered by then-named Pop 84 Split, including four by Kukoc and three from Avy Lester, in a 70-65 finals win over Barcelona in 1991. The victory completed back-to-back-to-back Euroleague titles for Split, a feat never matched.before or after. In fact, the sole back-to-back Euroleague champion since ’91 was Maccabi Tel Aviv, with consecutive rings won in 2004 and 2005.

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Ah, open interview day! BiE just got back from the open 15 minutes granted media by the Euroleague with the players of each team. The boys from FC Barcelona and CSKA Moscow – particularly the outstanding Pops Mensah-Bonsu; more on this momentarily – generously gave of some time after practice to take questions from eager media members ranging from Eurosport television to … well, to BallinEurope.

Spanish-language media was well represented at the event – hey, why not? Espana’s dominating every other aspect of European basketball this summer – and perhaps due to this (plus a lotta hype), the topic of conversation no matter who was at the mic ultimately always turned to Ricky Rubio. Ricky himself managed to show up to the practice floor just in time to exchange helloes with Pops before getting down to the business of basketball.

A typical exchange featured Ramunas Siskauskas and went something like the following.

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Well, the big games are just about upon us: Starting on Friday, the Euroleague Final Four — as well as the Nike International Junior Tournament final four — will be played, and another Euroleague season will be in the books.

Naturally, BallinEurope will be in Paris this weekend to cover the on- and off-court action, so please check in here from time to time to see what’s up. On Friday, there will be live blog coverage here at BallinEurope.com, so be sure to stop by then. The plan for Sunday is still TBA, but BiE may be in the chatroom over at ESPN on that day; stay tuned.

And hey, if you’re actually in Paris, drop us a line at BallinEurope@yahoo.com. It would be a hoot to actually, you know, *meet* a real-life reader.

Until later today then, when BiE’s in another part of The Continent: Adieu!

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Whoa, the Final Four starts in two days? Almost unbelievable. But enough digression! Yesterday, BallinEurope presented a brief position-by-position rundown of Friday’s FC Barcelona-CSKA Moscow game. Today, a consideration of the late game, Partizan Belgrade vs. Olympiacos.

Similarly to the early game, Partizan-Olympiacos also features a matchup between classic plucky underdog versus season-starting prohibitive favorite. Just like CSKA, Partizan wasn’t even “supposed” to be in Paris for the Final Four this year but don’t tell them; this one will be all about guile vs. slick weaponry.

The head-to-head matchups look something like the following.

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With the Euroleague Final Four mere days away, the giddiness increases at the prospect of figuring that, yes, without hyperbole, basketball fans could well be getting a complete slate of four classic games. While FC Barcelona and Olympiacos are the heavy favorites (and, ahem, BallinEurope.com’s teams predicted to make the finals at the beginning of the 2009-10 Euroleague season), the prospective top dogs will have no easy way with it.

Case in point: Barcelona. While the Blaugrana continue to look unstoppable, coming off the decisive best-of-five Euroleague series win over Real Madrid and a historic 73-54 blowout perpetrated at Murcia in ACB play, CSKA Moscow is precisely the team they don’t want to face: The Red Army certainly has the potential to give the Barça frontcourt fits, in particular.

BiE’s informal area-by-area briefing on the first Euroleague Final Four game – together with patented BallinEurope Fearless Prediction, naturally – goes something like this.

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Geez, talk about throwing down the gauntlet. Team Czech Republic/Partizan Belgrade stud Jan Vesely is not only confident his Black-and-Whites can pull off the upset in Paris against Olympiacos (echoing Svetislav Pesic), he’s going to be compiling his own personal highlight video while doing it.

Proclaimed Vesely to the Serbia-based Blic: “I know very few people pay attention to your defence and how you move when on the attack, but everyone remembers a slam dunk or a spectacular assist. Of course I love to dunk the ball and I plan to do plenty of it in Paris, so I can repay the Partizan fans for their support.”

Naturally, this is awesome news for us YouTube junkies, because any like additions to the pantheon below would be welcomed. And we don’t just remember the dunks, Jan: We also recall the blocks, the rebounds, the steals…

Meanwhile, Reds be advised: Vesely is coming! Continue Reading…

Excellent news for those waiting to plan a trip for the 2010 Euroleague Final Four tournament: Returning to host for the first time since 2001 is none other than the great city of Paris.

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