BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Goldsberry, who won for losing

So no further ado: Three quasi-brief impressions from the bigger games, done up bullet-style.

• Žalgiris: Ever interesting, ever relentless. BallinEurope’s recommended EL game of the week was Žalgiris Kaunas at Emporio Armani Milano. Žalgiris, with its slight vulnerability shown lately, needed to make a statement in this game in BiE’s opinion. Don’t worry Greens men and women: After this game, your guys will be sure to move up in the BallinEurope Euroleague power rankings…

Continue Reading…

How do you quiet one of those notoriously airplane-loud crowds in Belgrade? Eighteen-year-old Nikola Ivanovic, showing poise beyond his years, had the answer to that riddle on Saturday in Team Montenegro’s Eurobasket 2013 qualifying round game against Serbia. To cap the stunning upset victory, Ivanovic calmly launched a near-halfcourt three, struck gold and instantly utterly silenced a stunned Serbian house.

Continue Reading…

In clearing out the virtual desk of 2011-12 basketball season stuff, BallinEurope today presents this compilation of the year’s top Euro-centric buzzer-beaters. The requirements to make the list were two: the primary player in the buzzer-beater most be of European nationality or the shot must take place in a game featuring European teams; and the buzzer-beater must take place at the end of a quarter, i.e. no shot-clock buzzer-beaters considered.

Greater weight was given in consideration to the relative importance of the win earned with the highlight shot. Keeping one’s team alive is more important than YouTube glory, after all.

And on with the list. Firstly, honorable mentions go to:

• Travis Diener for Banco di Sardegna Sassari against Fabi Shoes Montegranaro on April 15. Sassari would go on to win in overtime, 79-77, and continue in a successful season which had them ultimately placing fourth in the Serie A. Unfortunately for the purposes of this post, not quite a buzzer-beater.

Continue Reading…

What’s that? You haven’t been watching the quarterfinal round of the Italian League’s playoffs? No problem: BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Enrico Cellini has – and he posts today about just what you’ve been missing, namely two cliffhanging, nail-biting finishes that finished off Virtus Bologna. (Ironically and mournfully, BiE notes Bologna’s elimination as dated the same as Kobe Bryant’s 2011-12 Los Angeles Lakers.) Cellini promises that the videos are the centerpiece and so those looking for classic buzzer-beaters need search no further than below the break.

Continue Reading…

A patented writeup on recent events is forthcoming from BallinEurope contributor David Hein soon, but in the meantime, the heinnews sports news bloodhound turned BiE onto this seemingly effortless, three-quarter court buzzer-beater popped by Chester Frazier for Würzburg’s s.Oliver Baskets against Ratiopharm Ulm in yesterday’s semifinal game one … too bad it was, you know, after the buzzer and all. On the other hand, Ulm won by 12 points regardless.

Continue Reading…

Biggest shocker of European domestic-league basketball playoffs thus far? David Hein posts this brief report on German Bundesliga no. 8 seed snapping top dog Brose Baskets Bamberg’s 48-game winning streak in the first match of their quarterfinals meeting – there’s even a quality Luol Deng-like buzzer-beater to boot…

Telekom Baskets Bonn squeaked into the German Beko BBL playoffs, but that didn’t stop Mike Koch’s team from pulling an absolute shocker in the opening game of the postseason. Benas Veikalas’ tip-in just before the buzzer gave the eighth-seeded Bonn a 75-74 victory at two-time defending champions and top-seeded Brose Baskets Bamberg.

Continue Reading…

Oh, Señor Navarro … you’ve done it again. Long since known as one of Europe’s great clutch players, Juan Carlos produced some more heroics for FC Barcelona yesterday. In the Liga Endesa week 33 game against superpowered rivals Real Madrid, the hosting Blaugrana looked sluggish early and looked to be inevitably suffering from a nine-point deficit going into the half. That is until La Bomba got an inbound pass from Chuck Eidson with 1.2 seconds left in the game – enough time to launch this doozy.

Continue Reading…

Y'know, like Michael used to do 'em...

The guidelines for submission are as follows:

• The primary player in the buzzer-beater most be of European nationality or the shot must take place in a game featuring European teams.

• The buzzer-beater must take place at the end of a quarter: No shot-clock buzzer-beaters will do. And naturally, any true dagger – i.e. a killer shot ending the first half, overtime period or game – will be given greater weight in any “Buzzer-Beater of the Year” considerations.

• And, um, that’s it, really.

Post a link to video on YouTube, DailyMotion or any other file-sharing service in the comments section. Better yet, to avoid excessive autobot spamming of the comments section, send those links to ballineurope@yahoo.com.

And now, for a little inspiration, below run a few delicious daggers that BiE’s collected thus far. Happy buzzer-beating!

Continue Reading…

You want a buzzer-beater? BallinEurope’s got your buzzer-beater right here, courtesy of Benetton Basket’s Jobey Thomas.

First, to set the table a bit for the thriller-capping final bucket in this week’s Eurocup match between the visiting Italian side and Lokomotiv Kuban: Benetton had trailed throughout the Group L matchup before finally putting together a 14-1 run to close out the third quarter and enter the final ten minutes up 55-53.

After some nip-and-tuck, Benetton found itself with a two-point deficit with 3.4 seconds remaining on the game clock. Taking the ball out of bounds after a timeout, Sani Becirovic appeared to have been ordered to look for a game-winning shot opportunity. (Gutsy call by coach Aleksandar Djordjevic; while common wisdom says to play for the win on the road, still. Gutsy.)

With 19 points already to his credit, Thomas broke free from his defender thanks to beautiful pick by Benjamin Ortner and found an open spot on the left side beyond the arc. Though Ali Traore came over to defend Thomas, well, just recall that old basketball axiom about never leaving your feet too soon…

Continue Reading…

Here we go for the opening week of the Euroleague. So if you need all the information, you are right here in the right place.

• Solobasket now offers content in English, too.
• Hedo Turkoglu told the Orlando Sentinel that he could imagine moving back to Europe after this season, when he becomes a free agent (found via basket-ball.com).
• Rasheed Wright wins it at the buzzer for Poitiers in the French ProB and gets naked. By the way, Rasheed greets his family (in French) in the post-game interview, says that it was the 10th buzzer-beater in his career and that he scored most of them. But why is the camera zooming on his body the whole time?
• Finally, Danilo Gallinari is back at practice. However, Mike d’Antoni thinks that Danilo will start the season in the D-League with the Reno Big Horns. Well, let’s hope “il Gallo” doesn’t get too desperate and spends all his money in the Biggest Little City in the World.
• Where a boy named Dirk happens.
• During the trip to Los Angeles for the American tour of Euroleague teams, the president of FC Barcelona Joan Laporta declared that he is in favor of the creation of a Global League including Euroleague teams, NBA teams and eventually Chinese squads.
• The German Bundesliga sees ALBA Berlin at the top. Not a real surprise for the new favorite for the best attendance in Europe (more than 13,000 fans on average after the first three games). The surprise of the season so far is Giants Nördlingen, who have a 4-1 record and are in second. The team coached by just 32-year-old Andreas Wagner is playing great basketball so far and beat former Euroleague team Brose Baskets in their arena this Sunday — a Brose Baskets team that currently only has one win in five games.
• Do you know who are the two best scorers of the Spanish ACB after the first three game days? Well it’s Brad Oleson and Paolo Quinteros. While the former, who holds by the way a German passport (hello Mister Bauermann) is still at the top, the latter was not as efficient in the duel both players had this weekend. Still, ACB TV had a nice clip to present the two of them.
• The weekly Brandon Jennings watch tells us: 14 minutes, 3 points (1/5 FG, 1/2 FT), 1 rebound, 1 assist, 1 steal and 1 turnover).