Maccabi: Something to cheer about. (Photo by Yaniv Ben Simon, MaccabiFans.co.il)
In the afterglow of Euroleague week four, BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Francesco Cappelletti, rounds up all that was in the week that was, including the lack of upsets, a dearth of home support in Turkey, and several teams that have yet to make the leap.
Easy groups
At the day of the Euroleague draw, most of us said Group C was the toughest, with four teams able to reach last Top 16 (Caja Laboral, Lottomatica Roma, CSKA Moscow, Maccabi Tel Aviv) and two representatives of the fighting Balkan-Greek spirit in Maroussi BC and Union Olimpija. Group D followed C, with a combination of newly ambitious squads (AJ Milano, Real Madrid), national champions (Asseco Prokom, EWE Baskets), and the dangerous Khimki Moscow and Panathinaikos to boot.
Now that four weeks are over, it’s right to say all those forecasts have gone south, because we have not seen a surprising upset since Euroleague tipped off. Big clubs lose games only against each other, and rarely have they left points in lower courts: Among the 48 matches played thus far, we are astonished only by Lietuvos Rytas’ win against Efes Pilsen in week 1. Maroussi grazed at an upset victory in its debut but Viktor Khryapa denied them; after this … nothing.
Hello everybody and welcome back – if you’ve ever read this column before, that is. One way or another, I’m Javier Gancedo, writing not from the Euroleague headquarters but rather from home this time around..jpg "Euroleague logo")
Hello everybody, this is Javier Gancedo from Euroleague Basketball Headquarters as always, and ready for a big Week 3 full of outstanding showdowns. Maccabi vs. CSKA is quite a big game by any standards: It’s also a good time for CSKA to show what to expect from Russia’s finest this season. Real Madrid vs. Panathinaikos sees Zeljko Obradovic facing Ettore Messina. These two coaches have combined for 11 Euroleague titles with six different teams – CSKA, Virtus, Panathinaikos, Joventut, Madrid and Partizan. This aside, there are enough big games all around the continent to focus in these two.
Supporters of Team France are still holding their collective breath, as their national team yesterday officially announced that oui, Joakim Noah is still practicing with the team in preparation for EuroBasket, but non, no word had been given by Noah’s Bulls on whether the NBA team would allow Noah to play in the EuroBasket additional qualifying round.
