BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

From the land of Dirk – Nowitzki and Bauermann, that is – David Hein reports on a few happenings in Germany’s top division of basketball. Read on to find out about Bayern Munich considering shrinks; an ever more cluttered playoff picture; the completion of the Top Four German Cup field; and Bremerhaven watching more and more teams pass them.

Hey Doc, We have a problem!
Despite times call for desperate measures, and the bosses at Bayern Munich are considering sending their players to a shrink to figure out how to win on the road. Bayern lost 68-49 to Fraport Skyliners on Saturday, dropping their ninth straight road game in the league (1-10 on the road in the BBL this season) and 13th overall away from home.

With his team owning a 11-1 record at home in the Audi Dome for a 12-11 overall mark, Bayern coach Dirk Bauermann sees the problem clearing in his players’ heads and admitted after the loss in Frankfurt that he has toyed with the thought of bringing in a psychologist for some time.

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Via the Shameless Plug Department, BiE advises readers looking to catch up on German basketball to check out BallinEurope contributor David Hein’s weekly English-language roundup of Bundesliga play – replete with highlights, natch.

Featured this week are blurbs on Brose Baskets Bamberg’s nice run, Bayern München’s abysmal road play and a sick shot from halfcourt by Tony Gaffney of Telekom Baskets Bonn to beat the 24-second clock. O, what the hell: That one BiE’ll run directly below…

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From the land of Dirk, David Hein reports on a few happenings in Germany’s top division of basketball. Read on to find out about the divergent paths of Brose Baskets Bamberg and Bayern München, Matt Howard’s new home, and the Fraport Skyliners’ surprise win last week.

Brose Baskets fend off pretenders Ratiopharm Ulm
So much for Ratiopharm Ulm wanting to challenge Brose Baskets for the German Beko BBL title. The two-time reigning league and cup champions Bamberg travelled to Ulm and made pretenders out of the supposed contenders, blowing out the season’s biggest surprise team 102-74 thanks to a team record 18 three-pointers.

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Before BallinEurope signs off for 2011, let’s give a late Christmas gift to the dunkaholics out there, shall we? Below runs a collection compiled through the year featuring dunks by Europeans, on Europeans or perhaps simply in Continental games.

The first 20 will listed by competition, followed the top five runners-up and the champion jam of the year. Who will be no. 1? Read (and watch) on to find out…

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It’s one Euroleague game remaining in 2011 for each of the regular-season entrants, and with only four teams mathematically eliminated – Asseco Prokom, SLUC Nancy, Spirou Charleroi, Union Olimpija – a great many of the 16 matches on tonight and tomorrow night’s slate remain significant. BallinEurope takes a look at the opportunities for advancement into the next round below; for reasons of complexity (you’ll see what BiE means when we get to Group A), these will be listed by group in backwards alphabetical order.

Group D. This one’s easy; the top four seeds for the Top 16 draw, in order, are FC Barcelona, Montepaschi Siena, Unics Kazan and Galatasaray Medical Park.

Group C. Real Madrid, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Anadolu Efes have clinched the nos. 1, 2, and 3 spots, respectively, in Group C. In a case of win-by-four-or-go-home, Emporio Armani Milano must beat Partizan Belgrade in Hala Pionir by two field goals or more in order to nip the Black-and-Whites for the fourth seed in the group.

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Here on the Continent, we realize what NBA fanatics have been missing as they twiddled thumbs waiting for cessation to the player lockout – and continue to twiddle as they await Christmas opening day. BallinEurope’s Enrico Cellini, however, knows better; below, he lists his top three buzzer-beaters thus far into the 2011-12 Euroleague – where devotion happens – regular season.

• The regular-season round of Euroleague basketball has provided plenty of dramatic finals so far. Coincidentally – or maybe not – the top three buzzer-beaters turned in so far were made by teams on the road. First came Dimitris Diamantidis’ three-pointer that capped Panathinaikos’ comeback (after going down by four in the last 15.6 seconds!) on the court of Unicaja Malaga in the sixth week of competition.

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Though Žalgiris Kaunas club director/former interim coach Vitoldas Massalski has categorically stated that no changes to the Greens’ roster will be forthcoming until the end of the Euroleague regular season, this can hardly stop the speculative future-gazing in Lithuania and beyond.

To wit: Yesterday, the Lietuvos Rytas website ran a report stating that Milovan Rakovic could be heading back from loan to his contracted club Montepaschi Siena in January. Siena would naturally like to bolster up in the middle for a deep run into the Euroleague playoffs in lieu of the injured Ksistof Lavrinovic.

Žalgiris’ prospects for advancement aren’t exactly dim, but they’re currently mired at the bottom of Group B, in a three-way tie with Brose Baskets Bamberg and KK Zagreb at 2-5. Losses vs. Panathinaikos tonight and Bamberg next week would certainly doom the Greens to elimination; even a 2-1 finish by the Lithuanian side might not be enough.

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Tonight will see another edition of The Continent’s traditionally most insane of all derby matches in Athens as Panathinaikos hosts Olympiacos at 7pm local time (6pm CET; noon EST). European basketball fans have come to know what to expect from whichever side of fans packs the house for a Greens vs. Reds war, namely this just for starters…

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A quickie note here, extrapolated from a brief on RIA.ru. Scroll down for the quasi-obligatory – and why not? This team is awesome to look at right now – CSKA Moscow YouTube highlight clip.

(Moscow) – Tickets for the November 16 Euroleague match between CSKA Moscow and Spain’s Unicaja Malaga had already been 70% sold, according to the Moscow club’s press service F-Sport.
“We sold almost 3,500 tickets today. Capacity is 5,000 and the match is nine days away. We are expecting a full house for the game.”

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After lazily posting the BallinEurope Fearless Predictions™ for Wednesday’s Euroleague games solely on Twitter – and going four for four picking winners, naturally – BiE returns the prognostication to its proper place, namely here. Following, then, brief takes on each of tonight’s seven matches.

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