Attendance figures for European competitions
June 26, 2008
After we have talked already about attendance of the different leagues, we take a closer look at the three main European competitions and their attendance figures.
Review of the Euroleague Top16 predictions
March 26, 2008
We will do this until the end. After the great articles and predictions for the regular season and the Top16 we want to take a look how close our experts actually predicted the Top16.
Let’s start with the guys who actually predicted the Top16 team record 100% right - some of them for the second time now.
FC AXA Barcelona - not only qualified for the Top8 but with a record of 3 wins and 3 losses - they guy who knew it already befor the first Top16 game? Jaime Martinez Lafargue of the Spanish web site solobasket. Slowly but surely this guy gets scary. First he was right with Axa’s regular season record (9-5) and then he knew that they would go to the Top8 with a 3-3. Maybe we should start betting posts with Jaime?
Next 100% expert: Yarone Arbel. Although he was off 21% with Maccabi’s regular season he was totally right with their Top16 record: 4-2. I am already excited to see what Jaime for Axa and Yarone for Maccabi have to say about this top8 where the two 100% guys clash.
Another come back team: Olympiakos Piraeus - and Gallis from gallobasket knew it already. He told us that Olympiakos would end the top16 with a 4-2 record. One thing he was wrong with though: He did not believe they would make the Top8 - because of Real Madrid - well we know that story…
But it wasn’t just these to guys that were right with their prediction: Kerem Oktemus predicted a 3-3 for Fenerbahce - good job. Can’t wait to see if Kerem will go with Fenerbahce in the Top8 also - I mean Siena might be a tough opponent to beat?
What about the others? Like Final Four favorite Panathinaikos and CSKA? Julie Debove was close to getting it right again - he predicted a 5-1 record - well only one basket in Barcelona messed up his prediction.
We all know the Panathinaikos story by now … Doubleteam.gr told us that Panathinaikos would cruise to the Top8 with a 5-1. They cruised home from Belgrade with a huge loss and a final top16 record of 3-3. I promise - this will be the last sentence about Panathinaikos’ Euroleague season 07/08.
Next club - Lietuvos Rytas. Prediction guy - Christophe Ney. Keep in mind that this guy writes his thoughts about basketball games here on BallinEurope no a daily basis and was totally off with Rytas’ regular season prediction (64% wrong). So I was really hoping that he would be right in the top16 - I mean I don’t want our readers to run away because of him! So Christophe predicted a 4-2 for Rytas. I just can hope that our readers will stay and I am really happy that we won’t get another prediction from Christophe for the Top8!
What about Partizan Belgrade - the Cinderella story of the Euroleague this season. Well, David Hein did the predictions for them and was totally right during the regular season. Even in the Top16 he was close - he predicted a 3-3. But one thing makes his prediction worthless: Dusko Vujosevic’s team will lose those two then sweep the next three before losing to Panathinaikos in the final game of the group. Damn - I mentioned Panathinaikos already!
Next disappointment: Real Madrid, which will have the Final Four in town but without the cities team. Maybe a good chance to grab some Final Four tickets! Alberto from basket-net thought they might end up first of their group with a 4-2 record - sorry Alberto… You can give us your Final Four tickets if you want!
Jonas Miklovas (basketnews) and Zalgiris: I would say Zalgiris will go 2-4 in Top 16. Close call Jonas - at least you were right that they won’t make the Top8 which makes me sad since we really enjoyed you insight reports directly from the Lithuanian arenas.
Last but not least we have to talk about Siena. Dario Marra (basketcentral), who I finally got to meet in Roma and actually is a Roma fan - and not Siena, told us that Siena would end up 3-3. They ended up 4-2 and led the group with Panathinaikos. I wonder if Dario will still stay a Roma fan or switch to Siena for the rest of the season.
Once again a big “thank you” to all the experts. Dario, Julien, Jaime, Gallis, Yarone, David, Kerem and Nacho of basketme will get an email from us today to let us know what they think about Siena’s, CSKA’s, AXA’s, Olympiakos’, Maccabi’s, Belgrade’s, Fenerbahce’s and Tau’s games in the top8. It might be hard for Jaime to still predict the perfect season for Axa!
Euroleague Top 8: the match-ups
March 20, 2008
So here are the match ups that we will see at the beginning of April in the Euroleague playoffs.
Read more
Euroleague champ Panathinaikos out - for real?!
March 20, 2008
First off, I did not watch last nights’ game of Panathinaikos vs. Partizan Belgrade. Christophe did and wrote a very detailed report about it.
But what does this mean for Panathinaikos now? Read more
WOW, PARTIZAN IS BACK
March 19, 2008
I watched the David vs Goliath game of the Euroleague Top16 tonight and here is my (long) report on what happened in Hala Pionir this Wednesday.
The game started with a huge moving screen by Mike Batiste that was not called, however Milt Palacio answered directly with a three pointer. As usual, Slavko Vranes starts the game instead of Nikola Pekovic and he even went for nice Pekovic like left handed hook shot. Other surprising tactical moves by the coaches at the beginning were the starting of Uros Tripkovic to defend on Sani Becirovic and Stratos Perperoglou to stop Novica Velickovic which both could not do in the beginning except with fouls.
With 2:45 to go in the first quarter, big Nikola finally enters the court and Petar Bozic scores a huge three to go for a 6 point lead of the hometown favorites. Bozic role in fact is to treat Sarunas Jasikevicius with his very special defense and PAO has to go for a first Timeout after Pekovic scores his first basket with one of his typical back to the basket moves. The first quarter ends with a great three point shot by Milenko Tepic after two great defensive stops by Partizan.
After Pekovic already abused Batiste and Dikoudis, PAO is now trying to defend him with the tricky Nikola Prkacin. And the Croat directly gets called for a foul after imitating too much of elbow pressure in his face and falling down to the floor with the greatest of style. However, two misses in offense followed by Green breaks are enough for Partizan’s coach to take a timeout. The Serbs start with a 2-3 zone where Prkacin hammers a dunk on the front of the rim but Spanoulis hits the big long range shot to stay in the game.
And the first little fights start off, and of course we have Prkacin within. After he lost the ball, he holds it in his hands and does not want to give it to the refs. Doing this as a Croat in Pionir is not the best idea, especially if you go for a another hard foul on Pekovic on the next defensive play. While the refs tell the two coaches in Italian to stop their circus on the bench, the local Grobari are doing their job by singing and clapping and cheering their own team like no one else in Europe does.
Pekovic in offense may not be the usual scorer so far, as his team mates hit shots but he is doing a huge job on getting foul calls from his opponents and showing why he is a Fantasy favorite. And while I am writing this, he misses on of his trademark hook shots badly from very close on the right hand. Another important note is probably the very good refereeing, I did not see any advantage giving to the Greens even as I am cheering a bit with the underdogs, like always.
PAO is also using the zone right now as Pekovic already gave the inside players a lot of foul calls. On the other side, Saras is really not a factor so far and misses a free throw so badly that he gets angry. Dusan Ivkovic is in the arena too to watch some of his potential Serbian NT players. Finally, the foul calls are also dropping on the Serbian guards and forwards that try to stop the PAO drives and you see the Greens on regular basis on the charity stripe. Finally, we have a halftime score of 42-37 and everything is still possible.
Jasikevicius is starting the 2nd half and directly goes for some of his little jumpers from the free throw line. Pekovic is getting more and more balls in the offense but he has some trouble to score against Batiste and is forced to pass out and gets intercepted several times. However, Partizan is still up 2 points when coach Vujosevic calls a timeout after a 5-0 run.
As the game is coming closer to the end, and the score still remains close too, the importance of the referees will increase. Kecman gets hammered twice on a drive but gets no call despite he is scoring or maybe because he is scoring. PAO is still remaining in the zone but Slavko Vranes is doing the game of his life with a nice offensive rebound and a huge Vlade Divac (who is also in the arena) like pass to go for a Partizan And1 score.
And we have the end of the third quarter with two ver bad passes from spnoulis and Palacio but no team could take an advantage out of it and Partizan is up 5 before the last 10 minutes. I deliberately don’t check any Internet forums or chats in order to not get influenced by Greek or Serbian commentators. However, actually, I believe that PAO will get the necessary calls in the end when it should get close. But you don’t know, Partizan is playing better and should win this game in any way.
Prkacin starts the fourth quarter with non called 3 seconds call-missed shot combination but Partizan can not use this to increase their lead. What is important to say is that Panathinaikos is not hitting from outside so far and Palacio goes for the breakaway dunk after another brick from Becirovic. While I was dissing on Saras in the beginning, he is now the man for PAO as he hits another jumper and forces a mid court violation with his defense. Yes, he plays defense. And he hits the three ball to stay in the game at 64-62.
The Euroleague TV commentator uses a Timeout to explain what he calls the “Obradovic rules”: If you do 5 fouls in the first five minutes, you get 5 foul calls; if you go for 15 tough defense with a lot of touches, grabbing and holding, you may get some foul calls (certainly not all) but you will also get a lot of steals. How right that is. And the whistles start to blow very often in favor for PAO and remain silent for Partizan in these moments with 6 minutes to go and an even score. Vijosevic is staying on the court on another non call on a PAO 3 seconds look-a-like.
The same moment, you see Zeljko Obradovic killing his own assistant. By the way, this assistant I see him so often standing and dancing around the line, who is that? The intensity of the game is even increasing and the crowd is going crazy while Saras is dribbling on his own foot by bringing up the ball without any defender on him.
And we go for another quote of the (excellent) EL.TV commentator. Sarunas has already missed one FT tonight, so he won’t go for another miss. (Saras misses) I think I should better shut up now. When talking about the referees, now Partizan is also getting some calls on drives but Saras is like always complaining of every decision by the Orange army. And there is another Timeout called with Partizan up 68-67 in an atmosphere close to absolute folly.
Something to add is that Milt Palacio is doing an amazing job. I better say it now before he busts it up in the end eventually. But a huge three gives Partizan a 6 point lead with a little more than 2 minutes to go. And the Greens only stay in the game at the moment because of Saras who is showing his amazing clutch skills. But Partizan scores on an offensive rebound where all the PAO defenders tried to dive to get the foul calls.
But Jasikevicius misses the ultra important three at 77-73. And Pekovic gabrs the rebound and will go to the line after the Timeout. And what Jasikevicius is for Pana, Palacio is actually for Partizan, the absolute go-to-guy. 30 seconds to go and Pekovic steps to the line for 2 out of 2. Diamantidis is going for a quick three-point attempt which he misses and Pekovic is two free-throws away to qualify Partizan for the Top8 round. And Pionir is burning, throwing every thing on the court when Kecman scores on the offensive rebound.
Final score 82-73 and what a mess for Panathinaikos who can not qualify for the top 8. I think I have to go to Belgrade now for the Playoffs.
A true Euroleague fan experience
March 16, 2008
“Free tickets! Free tickets!”, that’s all that’s running through my mind. I still cant believe as we figure out where they are, that we are only 4 rows back, 5 meters from “where the fit birds that dance are”. This was a great game (aside from questionable officiating). Rytas came out firing on all cylinders, getting the crowd entangled into the game. There were lots of shots made, villainous missed calls by the refs, several thunderous dunks, a large deficit to overcome, and a climactic pressure filled finally with the good guys coming out on top. The aftermath resembled a new year’s party.
 |
But lets start from the beginning. No pregame procession is complete without fried bread and local beer at a local pub (pictured below).
 |
As part of my effort to give small insightful details, I will give an important tip for those that may ever be in town to see a game; use a bus to get there (#53 is good). The arena and surroundings are made for probably 4000 cars to park, so when 6500 cars show up, its quite a problem. Every piece of curb, grass and even handicap space was used up and it took almost 20 minutes just to find a curb to jump on. In addition, Lithuanians are very Western-European like in the anti-bumping of car when parallel parking so not getting into a steamy situation over contact is best (I’ve never seen a car bump a car when parking, but I’d imagine some of the owners would be more upset then P. Diddy circa 1999 if you squeezed J-lo’s ass in front of him).
Affordable beer and snacks are still here, but as capitalism arrives I fear they may not last. Look what 3 Euros can get you!
 |
Oh, and don’t worry, there were even cup holders in every chair so I never spilled the bear amidst all the excitement.
 |
After ordering a couple beers and breads we made the perfectly timed entry to the last 30 seconds of some song or anthem.
 |
Those that didn’t get tickets to the sold out game had to watch it on a 90 minute delay. The abundant Svyturys beer advertisements on every, uniform, scorer’s table, wall and sometimes dance team’s outfits, make it illegal to show the game before 10 pm when children are still up. Beer is a big deal here so I feel compelled to talk about it.
As they seem to in every game, Rytas came out strong. But Fenerbahce Ulker matched the intensity and hit virtually every jumper they took, taking a surprising lead into half.
Seeing James White was electrifying (excellent book chapter).
This is the only guy courageous enough to attempt to touch the top of the backboard (and be only an inch off!)
Too bad he couldn’t hang in the Spurs system, because as a fan seeing a well balanced swingman like this that can jump out of the gym and get hot from the outside, is well worth the price of admission. As I tried for 5 minutes to hype up his abilities, and the possibility of us seeing something amazing, we were repeatedly distracted.
 |
Every several minutes we were amazed with new acrobatic feats, as pictured below.
 |
Then whenever we would concentrate on the game, they would change outfits into even brighter colors (not right in front of us but right around the corner) and come back to recapture our attention.
 |
Speaking of excitement, someone forgot to tell Semih Erden he’s white. He had some monstrous dunks with about 75% of the power of Daryl Dawkins. He looked huge and athletic. Even the misses were exciting. I am not sure if his post up game is quite ready, but he can finish dunks like no other forward I’ve seen in a while.
The home-field bull horns and team came out with massive wrath and intensity.
 |
Thunder sticks were also put to good use.
 |
The 3rd quarter was unfair to the visitors. Willie Solomon and Terrance Kinsey had to play by themselves, literally. The rest of the team were actually remote controlled dummies used for strictly in bounding and symbolic defense purposes. The two of them had to score and make every play for about 8 mins of the 3rd quarter. Good thing they were up to the task. Without those two, Rytas would have put the game away in the 3rd with a 30-3 run like if the Lakers (with Shaq and
 |
Jackson Vroman Couldn’t believe he fouled out!
 |
Having seem him in person a few nights before I noticed that he’s legitimately huge. Hollis Price on the other hand is definitely one of the more generously “listed at 187cm” people I have seen. At one point in the second half, I thought he got run over by truck when on of the 150 kilo forwards set a brutal moving pick on him. Think like the car accident that kills Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black. Then the refs immediately called him for the foul as he was trying to regain consciousness. That’s more fair and balanced that Foxnews I tell you!
As part of my fair and balanced reporting I will have to award the “Bruce Bowen douchebag” play of the night to a local guy, Arturas Jomantas. As he fouled Willie Solomon on the break, he managed to squeeze and extra forearm hit to the back in an attempt to bounce Willie into the floor. In my book that would have been a flagrant or a technical since he never went for the ball, only the cheap shot, but because Willie never fell, and the refs were not too interested in making correct or consistent calls, the foul was just a regular one.
“Pretend you’re not interested, act like we’re deterring crime”.
 |
Armed forces were also there to enjoy the game.
 |
When the team began to chop the 7 point deficit with 6 minutes to go the crowd started to get into it;
 |
 |
This was the Do or DIE game. Lose and season ends, win and you still have a chance. My free ticket dream lives on!
 |
Euroleague Top8: who will qualify?
March 15, 2008
With one game ahead in the Top16, there will be a tough race for several teams to qualify for the Quarterfinals of the Euroleague this week. I checked the different groups and will explain who has to do what in order to qualify.
Group D
Here the situation is pretty easy to explain. Montepaschi Siena is already qualified for the Playoffs as they have the direct advantage over Partizan and Panathinaikos, so even a loss in the last game against Efes would not harm them. However, they want to go for a win in order to secure their first place. The game to follow will be played in Belgrade between Partizan and Panathinaikos. The winner will qualify for the playoffs and it is hard to predict what will happen. And additionally, the winner will even go for the first place in case of a Siena defeat.
Group E
Tau Ceramica is through and even secured for reaching the top of the standings in the group for sure. The three other teams have still chances to qualify with the least possibilities of course for Aris Salonica. Fenerbahce has the "easiest" task as they have the direct advantage over Rytas and they play at home against TAU. A win and they are qualified. When they lose at home and Rytas wins in the Alexandrion, the Lithuanians are qualified. Those are the easiest cases. The calculations will come along if Aris beats Lietuvos Rytas and Fenerbahce loses against TAU. Then, we have three teams with 2 wins, and there will be some kind of mini-league between those three and the direct results will count. (Aris wins by 1-5: Rytas qualifies, Aris wins by 6-30: Fenerbahce qualifies, Aris win by 31 or more: Aris qualifies)
Group F
In group F, an improving and improving Maccabi Tel Aviv team has already their Playoff berth clinched with a huge win in Madrid this week. Zalgiris is out and there will be a final between Real Madrid and Olympiacos. The winner takes it all and advances to the next round. We have a similar situation than in Group D with Maccabi playing at home against Zalgiris and the best chances to go for the top spot. In cases of a defeat, the winner of the Olympiacos - Real game will be at the top of the standings.
Group G
In Group G, CSKA is already sure to finish at the first place while the three other teams have all chances to qualify for the playoffs. The toughest matchup will probably be for Barcelona who have to at home against CSKA. However, a win simply is enough as they have the direct advantage over Roma and Unicaja. So these two teams have to hope on a Moscow win in order to come into the position of a potential qualification. And the winner of their matchup in Spain will take the Playoff spot.
So it is up to you to make your choices. My bets would be on Siena and Partizan in D, Tau and Rytas in E, Maccabi and Real in E, and CSKA and Roma in G. Which means that we would have the following Playoff setups: Siena - Lietuvos Rytas, Tau - Partizan, Maccabi - Roma and Cska - Real.
Marcus Brown: “European basketball is never gonna grow, if..”
March 14, 2008
I am really thankful, that Jonas Miklovas of BasketNews.lt shares his experiences from last nights’ game of Zalgiris vs. Olympiakos with us. Zalgiris lost 52-61 and I remember Marcus Brown being really upset when he went to the bench in the fourth quarter Jonas explains us what happened.
DeJuan Collins quickly dressed up, packed his stuff and left the locker room. Usually humorous point guard didn’t take a shower, didn’t talk to the reporters.
Next to him there was Marko Popovic. Watching for some minutes into nowhere, probably remembering his last turnover. After timeout, with 30 seconds remaining and Zalgiris losing by 4, he took an inbound pass, lost the ball and Zalgiris hopes were all but dead.
Zalgiris lost third straight game, this time a low scoring battle to Olympiakos and that ended their season in Euroleague. With one game to play, Kaunas’ team has no chances of advancing to the next round.
Zalgiris scored 52 points – their season low, made just 30 percent of their shots – their season low as well. How come one of the best offensive teams in Europe (they averaged 80,5 pts prior to this game) are slowed down so much?
“It‘s pretty tough to score points when you are getting fouled”, explained Marcus Brown. “It‘s pretty tough when you put factors in the game. It’s pretty tough… We didn’t decide this game. Olympiakos didn’t decide this game”.
Pretty harsh words, isn’t it?
Battling through double teams most of the game, Marcus had 5 fouls himself (just second time this season he fouled out), while taking hit after hit. After going scoreless in first half, he had 9 points in second, but made two turnovers in the end, one of them resulting into Lynn Greer’s two pointer, which gave Olympiakos lead for good.
But that wasn’t what left Brown furious. Some possessions before he was fouled under the basket, but referees made no call. With Zalgiris up by 3, that call could have been decisive.
“My one wish is that I could play against the guys the way they play”, Euroleague all time scorer explained. “How aggressive they play, how aggressive they foul me. I wish I could do that on the defensive end. I can’t do that. I’m not allowed to do that. Everytime I do that, it’s a foul. Everybody knows I have a target on my back. So defenses are allowed to attack me. But I cannot attack back”.
“So this game was decided by referees?”, I tried to provoke.
“I’m just telling you my comments, I’m not gonna let you put words in my mouth”, he answered as a true professional. But then words that are in most of our heads came out.
“Their (referees) factor always decide the game. Same thing happened in Madrid. European basketball is never gonna prosper, is never gonna grow, until all the aspects are held accountable and all the aspects are getting better”, said Brown.
He carefully chose his words. Though Euroleague doesn’t punish it’s players for comments about the referees, Brown didn’t want to talk out straight. But having played in Europe for the last decade, he couldn’t remain silent.
He remembered game in Madrid, when Zalgiris was behind by 1 point, with 12 or 15 seconds to play. Real Madrid had the ball and everybody understood, that Zalgiris needed a foul. So they fouled. It is normal to foul when your team is losing and time is running out, isn’t it?
So what does referee do? He gives technical foul on Jonas Maciulis. Spaniards hit both shots and control the ball until final whistle. Game over, Real Madrid won.
Why technical? Why do they kill the possibility of watching last second shot, one team winning, another losing in a dramatic fashion? Why do guys in orange t-shirts can decide games?
This technical foul calling at the end of the game is absolutely ridiculous. Losing by 4 points and with less than 30 seconds to play, Zalgiris had only two team fouls. They needed 3 more to get Olympiakos to the three throw line. So they started fouling. Foul one – ok. Foul two – ok. Foul three – technical!
Was it any different than any two of those before? No. But it was committed by Jonas Maciulis. Does he get technicals because of a look on his face?
Or is it just small teams vs. big teams? If you had watched any of Panathinaikos games this season, you know the answer (hint: Game 2 of Top 16, Panathinaikos vs. Partizan).
Good luck, Partizan, next week.
Proof of European fans being crazy
March 13, 2008
Sometimes it is good to wait with an article. If you have followed last weeks’ live blog of Lottomatica Roma vs. CSKA Moscow you probably noticed the comments I made about the dance team and the response of the crowd. Luckily I was able to take a picture of that action. I will leave it up to you first, to find out what is going on in that picture:
Got it? Yeah that guy in the middle of the picture with the red hat is throwing something down there. Guess who was down there - The dancers - not cheerleader girls but normal dancers. I guess they did not like it. Well, this week these fans weren’t allowed to come to the game and they also substituted the dancers - they had the following girls jumping around:
Now guess what happened while these girls where dancing - every Italian guy in the arena wasn’t leaving at halftime to stare at these girls (a**es) in there short skirts. The crowd The guys was were really into it. Nobody was throwing anything.I don’t know if it were the girls or if was the fact that the ULTRAS weren’t allowed this time - funny thing.
Euroleague LIVE: Roma - FC Barcelona
March 12, 2008
Probably the last LIVE blog from Roma - since I don’t think they will go to the Top8. After the two horrible losses by as much as 30 points against CSKA and Barcelona they will face Barcelona again tonight.
Live Blog starts at 8.15pm
