According to New Zealand-based The Press, national team member Thomas Abercrombie will eschew playing in Europe as he has re-signed with the Breakers for 2011-12. The 23-year-old Abercrombie had reportedly seen European ball as a stepping stone on his path to the NBA but also reckons he’ll get oodles more playing time for his NBL team.

Clarke went on to state that Team New Zealand sharpshooter Kirk Penney has also reupped for another season, but that the player’s contract has an out clause should Penney sign with a European club before August 1. Penney played in Europe from 2005-07 in stints with Maccabi Tel Aviv, Žalgiris Kaunas and Alba Berlin.

Of course, the shooting guard was last seen in Europe last year for the 2010 FIBA World Championships, a tournament in which he racked up quite the nice stats, highlighted by an opening-game 37-point barrage in a loss to Team Lithuania.

Penney has also played 1½ seasons’ worth of D-League ball plus cups of coffee with the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Clippers in the 2000s. Though invited to the San Antonio Spurs’ camp in 2010, Penney could not land a position there.

On his stud guard, Breakers coach Andrej Lemanis said that, “We will wait until we know for sure he is returning and while at the moment we are planning on having Kirk back, we have to be flexible if he does decide to head to Europe.”

Six other players were announced to the squad, and the Breakers may yet sign more big names before 2011-12: “Also affecting the [roster] situation at the moment is the potential NBA lockout and what effect that will have on the quality of imports available,” Lemanis said.

• How great is everything going for Maccabi Tel Aviv this season? They even produced one of the greatest jams of the calendar year with Jeremy Pargo’s bitchin’ double-posterization in which first he breaks ankles before jamming it over (through, really) the hapless Zalgiris Kaunas big man.

• BiE’s been hype about Jan Vesely since the young man turned it on for Partizan in the 2009-10 Euroleague Top 16 round. Though not yet an earth-moving force for the Black-and-Whites, flashes of brilliance are never far away when Vesely’s on the court. First comes a representative Vesely dunk off the breakaway; as for the second, well, how does a seven-footer turn invisible like that?

and another Vesely:

• Marcus Johnson somehow managed to turn LeBron James’ head all the way from the home of VfB Giessen; no wonder with a ridiculous dunk like this. And in a truly 21st-century turn of events, Johnson found his Twitter account popularity quintupling within 12 hours of King James’ exhaltations.

• When compiling a list of best dunks of 2010, there’s only so far one can go before the words “Blake Griffin” appear. So here’s the NBA’s most exciting player devastating the New York Knicks’ European representatives Timofey Mozgov and Danilo Gallinari in a single November game.

• Speaking of Gallinari being posterized, here’s another example of the Italian on the wrong end as Israeli sensation Omri Casspi beat Gallinari badly in the freshman/sophomore game at the 2010 NBA All-Star Game.

• So Gallinari’s been embarrassed a couple of times. It’s still nothing compared to Tony Skinn’s amazing (and painful) jam perpetuated in Italy in 2010. Mercifully, this one’s been taken down from YouTube, so you’ll have to imagine…

• Over in France, former NCAA studs Marquez Haynes and Amadi McKenzie rule the air as well.

• But after Griffin, the game’s air-traffic controllers really need to be policing the skies above the Balkans for Marty Pocius, a young dude who proves that Lithuanians can fly … or at least this one. Seriously, check out the hang time and aerodynamics in just a pair of representative jams from the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

• Pocius’ teammate Jonas Maciulis ascended to new heights in the summer tournament, too:

• Not exactly awesome, but probably historically significant were former Baskonia superstar Tiago Splitter’s first NBA points for the San Antonio Spurs.

• Partizan’s James Gist won “Euroleague Play of the Night” honors for the following sequence; he easily could have won two such awards with the highlights on both ends of the court.

• If this is BallinEurope and we’re talking dunks, well, then, yes, the entrance of Sofoklis Schortsanitis is inevitable. How happy were Maccabi fans to see this on their side in October?

• If a dunkophile only got to watch one game in calendar year 2010, BiE sincerely hopes it was the Olympiacos-Partizan Euroleague Final Four game: This one was a veritable big reel of highlight dunkage, particularly from the Reds. Roll ‘em!

Here’s a sweet jam by Linas Kleiza; check out how Big Sofo passes through the double-team while in the paint. Nice.

And here’s one of Sofoklis’ last-ever Euroleague dunks for Olympiacos.

Here, Josh Childress turns a busted play into an almost nonchalant two points; while some might contend that Childress may not actually slam that dunk down, neither did Griffin against Mozgov up there and no one complained.

However, no dunk on all The Continent in 2010 matched in importance this contribution that saved Olympiacos’ Euroleague season at the buzzer. Ladies and gentlemen, here’s the reason Josh got paid the big bucks. (Followed by a couple views from the stands of the play.)

Relive 2010 with BiE through championships Euroleague and FIBA, the NBA offseason, the greatest basketball documentary in years, Allen Iverson abroad and dunks. Oh yes, there will be dunks. Click on any the titles in bold to read the original post. Enjoy and as always thanks for reading BallinEurope.com!

1. Serbian suspicion confirmed: Photo shows Tunceri stepped out
The 2010 FIBA World Championship was a fantastic edition of the international tournament – even if Team USA did bring too much Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook for very serious competition from the rest of the planet – and BiE is loath to cast aspirations on great memories. However, Team Serbia was right to be indignant about the semifinal match against hosts Turkey, specifically the last-second play fumbled by Hedo Turkoglu and recovered by Kerem Tunceri in time for the game-winning shot. Except that this photograph appeared online the next day.

2. Lebron touts wicked dunk from Germany
The undisputed tweeter of 2010 was clearly Lebron, who used the 141-character format to air some controversial views, hyped the virtues of Kevin Love and Chris Paul, and got former University of Dayton baller Marcus Johnson viral-like attention for this wicked jam out of Germany.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand ... Rudy's still with the Blazers

4. *The* proverbial nasty dunk. No, really.
Tony Skinn is certain to be a charter member in the BallinEurope Hall of Fame whenever that little doozy is created on the basis of this clip alone. Geez, talk about your leverage…

5. See “Once Brothers” here (while you can)
Well, you can still see “Once Brothers” here, though BiE has had to update the embeds a couple of times … a shoutout to YouTube user DejanBody2010, whose posts BiE’s using, has a pretty excellent European and NBA basketball video collection well worth a look.

6. Partizan Belgrade takes Adriatic League in thriller
The shot seen ‘round the world, thanks to its easy virability (just made that word up – all rights mine) as both a miracle shot, a dagger to end all daggers, and a lesson for the kiddies, i.e. keeping playing until the buzzer sounds. In this woeful 2010-11 season for the Croatian side, BiE swears Cibona is now suffering under The Curse of Dusan Kecman.

7. Euroleague Games Four highlight clips
If LeBron was basketball’s ruler of Twitter, Ricky Rubio rocked BiE’s favorite video sharing website and today the Euroleague’s Rising Star for 2009-10 surely today leads the world in ratio of YouTube views to actual, you know, views. This set of official Euroleague clips features the Human YouTube putting in perhaps his best game of the past season to bounce Real Madrid from the EL tournament round.

In parallel that week, Milos Teodosic and Josh Childress played fantastic games for Olympiacos in their own game four against pseudo-Cinderella story Asseco Prokom, while Pionir stands and Belgrade streets blew up with excitement and frivolity following Partizan’s bouncing of Maccabi Tel Aviv.

8. Allen Iverson’s first game with ‘Cola: Half-empty or half-full?
9. Iverson’s debut tonight
Making a bigger splash than when Childress crossed the Atlantic, Allen Iverson’s decision to take his talent to Küçüksu Beach generated more buzz for any American hoopster in Europe since Dominique Wilkins. One wonders if Turkish basketball will ever see anything approaching the viewing figures for that first Beşiktaş Cola Turka game – and what it would take to do so.

10. No dunks, please, we’re Finnish (or, The Greatest Offensive Foul of All-Time)

Let’s wrap things up with a dunk by Theron Wilson of the Salon Vilpas Vikings … or, wait, maybe that’s not a dunk in Finland. Hmm, well, if you think Finnish basketball is weird, just check out the way they play baseball…

As we await the great stories of 2011, BallinEurope wishes all the readers a very happy new year!

Official FIBA writeup follows.

(FIBA) – The United States can finally forget the disappointment of 2006 in Brazil after beating the Czech Republic on Sunday in the gold medal game at the FIBA World Championship for Women.

The Americans, who were upset by Russia four years ago in the Semi-Finals and had to settle for bronze, completed an unbeaten run in the Czech Republic with an 89-69 triumph over the host nation in front of another loud crowd in Karlovy Vary.

Diana Taurasi, one of the American superstars, had 16 points and was voted to the All-Star Five. “To come here, play against this great team and with a fantastic crowd means a lot to us,” Taurasi said.

“We had 12 determined players. The Czech Republic are a basketball country, they have good players and a fantastic coach and they had a good run. For us to win gold at the World Championship was grueling, hard and personally, very satisfying, especially the way we did it.”

Both the USA men and women have won world titles this year.

As they did for the entire tournament, Geno Auriemma’s side had an advantage on the boards: Team USA finished with 43 rebounds – 19 on the offensive glass – to 29 for the Czechs.

Angel McCoughtry ended up with a game-high 18 points with Taurasi contributing 16. Tina Charles also excelled in the low post, scoring 13 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.

The Czech Republic lost the game, but couldn’t help but smile and celebrate almost immediately after the final buzzer. To reach the title game was a real achievement because their pre-tournament aim had been to make it to the quarterfinals.

Hana Horakova, the Czechs’ best player, was voted MVP of the tournament and was also included in the All-Star Five with teammate Eva Viteckova, USA’s Taurasi, Spain’s Sancho Lyttle and Belarus center Yelena Leuchanka.

“This is a dream,” Horakova said. “I share all of these awards with my teammates because they helped me get them. This is a great result for Czech basketball, to finish runners-up in a World Championship feels like a miracle.

“We knew it would be very difficult against the USA and it was because they have 12 stars in their team.”

The United States caught a break at the start of the game when the Czech Republic’s Jana Vesela appeared to trip over Charles’ right leg while trying to play defense. The veteran forward crashed into a player, fell hard to the court and didn’t return.

The Czechs continued to battle and only trailed 19-14 at the end of the first quarter and 40-35 at half-time, despite the Americans getting 18 points off turnovers.

Horakova had a game-high nine points at the break with two steals and Petra Kulichova had three blocks at the interval. Taurasi had eight points while point guard Sue Bird had six with three steals.

The start of the second half is when the Americans took over.

“The coach told us at half-time that we had to take a deep breath,” Taurasi said. “We came back in the second half with a lot of energy and we got a big run and got big shots.”

After a Tereza Peckova basket cut the Czech deficit to 40-37, the USA got a three-ball from Taurasi before a Tamika Catchings steal triggered a fast break that Bird finished with a lay-up.

Kulichova scored with a 10-foot jumper, but Taurasi struck again from the arc to spark a 10-0 run that put the USA in front at 58-41. They remained in command the rest of the way and went in front by as many as 25. The USA ended up with 28 points off turnovers.

Today, defending FIBA world champions Team Australia and Olympic titlists Team USA are still undefeated and are both facing teams characterized as desperate for wins and with very little to lose.

Greece takes on the Opals two days after squeaking past Senegal to advance to the second round. And in what BiE’s guessing will be Team USA’s biggest scare to date, the Stars and Stripes get Canada.

Meanwhile, consensus no. 3 team Russia draws Brazil while Team Espana should remain undefeated after their game against Japan.
What was that about Wednesday? Well, if you watch only one game before the championship game, Team USA takes on Australia and Russia gets Spain on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, you’ll have to choose: Both games tip off at 8.15 CET (2.15 EST). The knockout round begins on Friday.

All the FIBA World Championship for Women Eighth-Final games, plus interviews, features can be watched online at the FIBA TV website.

Taurasi seeks revenge

Another full slate of games is going on today in the Czech Republic with the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Women entering game three of pool play.

Team Canada and Team Japan managed to turn in the first surprises of the tournament yesterday in overcoming China and Argentina, respectively, but otherwise it seems like business as usual. As this is being written, the Americans are holding a double-digit lead against heretofore undefeated France, presumably leaving Spain alone with the triple-headed monster of USA, Russia and Australia among the lossless teams.

If FIBA’s rankings for the men’s side seemed more than a little bizarre (BiE’s still trying to figure out how Argentina maintained a no. 1 ranking when the USA was the reigning Olympic champion and Spain the defending FIBA Worlds titleholder, but it’s academic now), at least the story of international women’s basketball is well-told by the numbers. Here’s what the top of FIBA’s table “Women’s Ranking after 2009 FIBA Americas Championship for Women” looks like:

obligatory Erin Phillips photo

1. USA: 1140.0
2. Russia: 921.0
3. Australia: 902.0
4. Brazil: 456.0
5. Spain: 455.0
6. Czech Republic: 334.0
7. China: 318.0
8. France: 286.0…

You get the picture. And it’s accurate. The top three women’s sides are indeed that much better than the rest of the world and this edition of the FIBA Worlds for Women is certainly bearing it out. So far, the Americans have outscored the opposition 265-126 through 11 quarters; the ladies of Oz have won their first three by an average score of 82-58, while the Russians are playing to an average score of 73-58.

All the hype ‘Stateside since this tournament began has been on the revenge Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird and the USA women plan to exact for the “embarrassing” loss handed them by Russia in the 2006 Worlds – and this time, the hype may be right with few other stories seemingly worth covering.

Among the teams with their tournament on the line today are Greece and Senegal who will face off in one of the last games of the day, looking for the one win that will carry them into the Eighth Final round. Belarus and Canada will likely fight for second place in Group A and the Czech Republic and Japan will do the same in Group D.

BallinEurope’s been watching some of the action, but sure wouldn’t anyone for not tuning in for every second. And while it seems the only question may be who lands where on the podium when the tournament’s all over, the “Eighth Final” round should be entertaining at least.

You can see every game LIVE from the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Women, plus plenty of interviews and features at FIBATV.com.

BallinEurope’s attention has been drawn to an interesting 11-minute long docusportdrama (BiE just made that word up) of the sort YouTube fosters. The somewhat-unwieldily titled “And you? Are you able to understand what this means for Lithuania?” is a great look back at what the strong showing from Team Lithuania symbolized.

Taking us through the aftermath of the “disaster in Poland,” i.e. the Eurobasket flameout that left the likes of Linas Kleiza, Simas Jasaitis and Mantas Kalnietis apologizing to fans while wondering aloud about team psychological issues, to the Green-and-Golds triumph over Spain and beyond in the Worlds, YouTube user Dabqtis presents a nice tale of basketball redemption.

(And the addition by Dabqtis of English-language subtitles to the player-interview segments is so appreciated that BiE’ll overlook the Guns ‘n’ Roses soundtrack in endorsing this nice bit of work. Kudos.)

Since no one needs reasons to watch this game, BallinEurope will simply enumerate a few things BiE’ll be watching for in tonight’s sure-to-be-stirring FIBA championship – and offers a fearless prediction or two, naturally.

• Turkey’s dependence on Hedo Turkoglu. Yes, he’s the undisputed team leader; sure, you can call him The Greatest Turkish Basketball Player of All-Time if you like, but BiE still doesn’t like the way Team Turkey can become the pre-Pau Lakers out there in crunch time, i.e. everyone stands by while Hedo Does Work.

Memo to Turkey: The secret’s out. As the tense Turks looked to their leader again and again in the fourth, Turkoglu was pressed into fighting through tough interior defenses and drawing double-teams habitually on the outside. Hedo saved a little face by snagging two key boards in the quarter, but his shooting line reads 1-for-5 overall in the last stanza plus an ofer on his only trip to the free-throw line.

Check out the fateful inbounds pass here (save a little time and start the clip at about 0:40). With absolutely no mystery as to how this play will unfold, Turkoglu draws the attention of four Team Serbia defenders before dishing it to the still Kerem Tunceri by the sideline.

BiE’s said it before and will say it one more time: Hedo needs to facilitate ball movement more and alpha-dog it less. Going into the knockout stage, Turkoglu was fourth on the team in scoring, shooting at over a 42% clip while adding 4.0 assists per game. After a combined 8-of-19 in the last two games, his shooting percentage for the tourney is down to 38.2% – and he couldn’t manage a single assist last night under the smothering Serbian defense. Surely someone else will need to step up for Turkey, because Team USA fears Turkoglu not.

• Westbrook playing the point. Certain Team USA followers (cough, cough, Bulls fans, hack, cough) were perhaps dismayed by Derrick Rose’s severe lack of playing time in the second half, while others (cough Oklahoma City cough cough *cough* ahem) were digging on Russell Westbrook’s all-around play at the no. 1 spot.

As Chris Sheridan, who’s been doing a bang-up job covering the tournament for ESPN, points out, Rose has become more inconsistent throughout the FIBA Worlds and has a serious Achilles heel in confronting big bodies in the paint. Who’d’ve thought a backcourt combination of Westbrook and Chauncey Billups’d work? And one more time: How scary are the Oklahoma City Thunder looking for, say, 2011-12 and beyond?

• Ilyasova drawing Durant. Poor Ersan Ilyasova; one night after getting shut down and frustrated by Serbia to turn in a line of six points, four rebounds and five personal fouls, he’ll be dealing with a white-hot Kevin Durant in most defensive coverages. The Milwaukee Buck may be in for a preseason of flashback-filled nightmares after this one…

• Lamar Odom dealing with his (literally) biggest challenge yet. Odom may have turned in his best performance in the tournament yet last night, totally establishing dominance underneath the basket early – but that was against the relatively small Lithuania. In the Russia game, Odom put on an … interesting performance while going to war against Andrey Vorontsevich. Awesome on the boards with five offensive and seven defensive boards, Odom on the other hand had difficulty shooting even inside the paint in going 2-for-7.

Odom vs. Asik might be a titanic struggle, but Omer and the boys could yet prove to finally be the team that exploits the well-publicized pre-tournament rhetoric that Team USA is too small.

• The daggers being thrown in ESPN.com’s Daily Dime Live chat. The Turkey-USA match marks the last chance for The Continent to represent in America’s most fun ‘n’ outrageous in-game basketball chatroom … until the NBA regular season. It all starts at 5.30pm CET (11.30am EST). Just don’t forget the bacon.

Official BallinEurope Fearless Prediction™: Trust me, BiE has been trying to find a way to justify picking Turkey in this game since the final buzzer in the Serbia game last night. But, man … Kevin Durant – that’s all that needs to be said, innit? Turkey keeps it close, but the Stars and Stripes pull away in the fourth to win by 10 behind MVP Durant’s 25 points.

Without further ado, here are twelve bits ‘n’ bites to enjoy going into the Lithuania-USA and Turkey-Serbia games tonight from across world media.

• Nenad Krstic, who correctly prognosticated that “We will make Team Spain congratulate us,” won’t hedge his bets in this game but does promise that Team Serbia will be ready and will play their game.

• Hey, is Steve Porter working for Turkish TV now?

• Kestutis Kemzura proclaims, “You can beat us, you can win, but you cannot destroy us. This is the amazing thing about our country.” And Robertas Javtokas is playing the nobody-believed-in-us card.

• BiE’s just glad he’s not the only one who can’t figure out why Team Lithuania, 2010 edition, is so damn good…

• In an interview, Derrick Rose explains that this Team USA is *not* lacking that intangible team feeling that gives so many South American and Europe squads an advantage in these sorts of tournaments.

• One person who isn’t picking Team USA to win it all: Dejan Bodiroga, Team Yugoslavia and Euroleague all-time great. Bodiroga says “The Americans haven’t impressed me” and implies that he likes the winner of Turkey-Serbia.

(“Amerikanci me nisu impresionirali, verujem da će šampion sveta biti bolji iz našeg duela sa Turcima. Očekujem neizvesnu utakmicu jer se sreću dve ekipe koja igraju najbolju košarku. Naš tim izgleda jako dobro, igra odličnu odbranu, uvek neko iskoči a Turci deluju moćno.”)

• And here’s another: Jose Calderon picks Turkey.

• Could the fact that “Air” Martynas Pocius played for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke be a secret weapon in the Lithuania-USA game?

• Not even the Turkish marketplace can disturb Team USA’s focus. Scary.

• ESPN True Hoop blogger Jay Aych over at The Painted Area likes USA over Lithuania and reckons the Stars and Stripes will be facing zone defenses – lots and lots of zone defenses today. (But who can stop Kevin Durant, really?)

• Wayne Winston, he of the slightly more objective power rankings than those of BallinEurope, likes – no loves – USA vs. Turkey in final.

• BallinEurope Official Fearless Predictions™: A pair of remarkable runs come to an end as the USA and Turkey outlast their opponents, the former with speed and the latter with size.

"Seed" surely saw

“Celebrate good times,” as they say, “come on!”

Of course the folks in Lithuania need no such exhortative encouragement after blowing past Team Argentina last night, 104-85, to reach the 2010 FIBA World Championship final four. The tournament has represented an awesome achievement for Europe in general, with three of the four teams remaining, and specifically for Lithuania; who’d’ve figured the wild-card entry entering the tournament at 40/1 would be in a prime position for a medal at the end?

And while the plucky Lithuanians’ memorable road figures to end Saturday when Team USA takes the court against ‘em, nothing can take away the pride a nation feels today – not to mention last night’s party atmosphere in the country. Roll the clips!

In Lietuvos Rytas’ home, Siemens Arena in Vilnius, fans packed the house to watch Lithuania-Argentina on giant screen – and perform a slightly-inebriated version of “Trys Milijonai.”

Nearby, the center square in Vilnius was also cram-packed while the temperature sat at about 12-13ºC (about 54 ºF).

And the real partying started after the final result came in. (Since Team Lithuania broke 100, will Mark Cuban be buying the entire country tacos today?) Here’s the scene from Kaunas old town:

And in old town Vilnius:

What else can BiE add to that, except maybe … All together now!

Galbūt per daug ir per ilgai mes kariavom,
Galbūt per ilgai kartojom žodį šlovė…

Thanks again to reader A.S. for the YouTube links!