Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog

They’re breaking out the superlatives today over at the ACB’s official website, full in the afterglow of a weekend’s worth of mostly tight games or, as writer Malo de Molina put it, “¡Qué jornada!”

When the dust settled, Real Madrid (20-5) had beaten fourth-place Valencia (16-9) and wrested second place from slipping Caja Laboral Baskonia (20-5), who suffered a shocking 74-58 loss to no. 6 Asefa Estudiantes (13-12).

Cajasol (ranked 5th, 15-10) and giant-killers Gran Canaria 2014 (8th, 12-13) continued their upward trend with wins over Valladolid (10th, 11-14) and Suzuki Manresa (11th, 11-14), respectively. Xacobeo Blu:sens (17th, 8-17) and DKV Joventut (9th, 12-13) managed to snap losing streaks, the latter scoring its first win under coach Pepu Hernandez.

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Look out, upcoming Olympiacos opponents: Big Sofo is just starting to heat up. After a marginal season in Euroleague play up in the early going (BiE is blaming it on that H1N1 the big man contracted in the autumn), Sofoklis Schortsanitis turned in his peak Euroleague performance of 2009-10 a week and a half ago, going for 19 points in just 18 minutes of playing time (read: “time spent dominating the paint”) against helpless Baskonia.

This weekend, the Red chased up his humdrum 2-of-6 showing in the BC Khimki game by taking the ESAKE All-Star Game MVP award with statistics insane even for such an exhibition: Would you believe 42 points of 19-of-21 shooting, including 3-of-5 on threes and a perfect 16-of-16 from within the arc?

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Mentally battered and otherwise worked over since this morning’s 4am True Hoop live blogging, BallinEurope nevertheless wanted to post *something* with which the loyal readers might waste some time on Saturday.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, the token YouTube video highlight collection post of the day.

The Euroleague Top 10 Plays of the Week clip was again dutifully uploaded onto the ‘Tube and so runs below the break. Is Ricky in it? Yes, and Pops is, too, plus an awesome Viktor Khyrapa block that BiE *knew* would be in here as soon as it happened, awesome three-way passing work by Partizan, and Linas Kleiza creating one of the greatest highlights off a missed free throw ever.

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The WNBA’s Atlanta Dream yesterday announced they’d acquired the rights to BallinEurope fave Team Hungary/MiZo Pécs guard Dalma Iványi from the San Antonio Silver Stars for center Michelle Snow.

Iványi is currently good for a line of 11.1 points, 3.8 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game in the Hungarian league; in 13 games’ worth of Euroleague Women play, she was good for 7.6 ppg and a sliver under 7.5 rpg. Iványi really crashed the sports headlines last week when she went for a triple-double of 24/11/10 against EL final four team Wisla Can-Pack.

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Pops!

Apparently, however, no one told the Muscovite home crowd, who were as stoked for this contest as any game that truly “counts.” And one CSKA player in particular didn’t get the memo.

The highlight clip runs below the break. Some nice shock-and-awe moments to look out for include an awesome block by Viktor Khryapa at 0.30 or so to stifle a fast-break opportunity and Travis Watson’s open JAM for one of Kaunas’ last gasps at 0.54, but the show was stolen by that guy wearing only POPS on his jersey’s back: See the sweet alley oop finished off at about 1.08, Mensah-Bonsu throwing it down again just (YouTube-measured) a few seconds later, and the serious poster shot on the breakaway at about 2.03. Oh, and a “not in my дом” block at about 2.23.

Final score: CSKA 84, Zalgiris 71. Mensah-Bonsu’s final line: 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting, eight rebounds and an index ranking of 23. And onto the final eight marches the Red Army…

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It wasn’t the Academy Awards, but the supporting cast sure sounds similar: Folks like Kevin Spacey, Hugh Grant, Gwyneth Paltrow, Clive Owen, Kyle MacLachlan and the distinctly un-blue Michelle Rodriguez. However, the beautiful people from Hollywood and London had in fact come together to acknowledge some of the sporting world’s greats.

The occasion in Abu Dhabi last evening was the presentation of the Laureus Awards, at which former NBA great Dikembe Mutombo bagged a prestigious Laureus Award in the special “Sport for Good” category. Mutombo won the prize in recognition of his charitable work in his native country Congo.

What? You’ve never heard of the Laureus Awards? Well, as it turns out, Laureus is a philanthropic organization made up of the Laureus World Sports Academy, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation and the Laureus World Sports Awards; its mission statement promises to “promote the use of sport as a tool for social change and celebrate sporting excellence.”

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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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Sofoklis!

This week’s three minutes of fun features Jamont Gordon totally giving up the body, an emphatic rejection from D’Or Fischer, Juan Carlos Navarro looking a little like Steve Nash without the pass, Bo McCalebb going up about 200 feet for the jam, but most of all BallinEurope’s main man Sofoklis Schortsanitis passing like a guard in what was the big guy’s most dominant show since Greece took care of Team USA’s mostly nonexistent inside game back in the 2006 FIBA Worlds…

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It’s Academy Awards time on the other side of The Pond tonight, Hollywood’s celebration of itself (approximately 96% of a given broadcast) and movie magic in general (the remaining 4% minus obligatory sponsor plugs). So, on Tinseltown’s holiday, BallinEurope takes stock of the major international and, um, not so-international basketball-related cinematic releases of 2009.

We may as well just call these the nominations for the 2009 Ball in Europe annual Best Basketball Movie; indeed, these eight films represent a smaller bunch than the entire “Best Motion Picture” nominations pool.

Quite the disappointing year it was for the Hollywood basketball flick, too. Not only was there a distinct absence of slick crowd-pleasers like “Glory Road” or marketable hits like “Semi-Pro,” but the sole movie produced by Hollywood in 2009 is the groan-inducing “17 Again.”

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In awarding the first-ever Oscar (Robertson) for the Best Basketball Motion Picture of The Year, Ball in Europe is pleased to be able to acknowledge not only truly the best basketball movie of 2009, but the best movie of 2009; not only the greatest film of the year, but the greatest film of all-time; and not merely the greatest film of all-time, but one of the single most significant accomplishments in the very existence of homo sapiens.

To that film – nay, this human achievement – goes the 2009 Oscar (Robertson) for Best Basketball Motion Picture of the Year.

That film is “Who Shot Mamba?”

As a mere mortal like yours truly has no business even attempting to encapsulate the breathtaking breadth of this film’s philosophical scope and no chance at capturing all the sharp humor in a movie that blows away discussion of formerly held cinematic comedy classics like “The Great Dictator” and “The Life of Brian” (Is it any coincidence that Mamba’s titular character is as serpentine as that Monty fellow from Britain?), I’ll allow the official website to provide the capsule description:

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