BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Damn straight BallinEurope’ll run these videos. Alongside this year’s top-notch hoops for which the Copa Del Rey has become world famous, the 2013 edition of the tournament featured some amazing athleticism, choreography and straight-up gorgeousness from Las Dreamcheers, a dance team made up of ACB cheerleaders.

Check out the Liga Endesa-produced video directly below for highlights from last weekend’s show-within-a-show, including what must be the world’s sexiest stewardess outfits. (Is this a preview of Turkish Airlines’ new employee wardrobes?) Good ol’ YouTube provides another compilation as well…

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In a series of advertisements featuring CSKA Moscow players and dance team, Papa John’s hopes to be hocking a lot of pizzas in the big city. The advertising campaign is your fairly standard stuff; a representative sample runs starring Milos Teodosic, Andrey Vorontsevich, the team mascot and Anton Ponkrashov resembling the world’s largest pencil with ramrod-straight party hat on head runs below the break.

But one commercial is particularly worthy of mention. For all those who thought basketball-related advertising in France was weird … check out this episode of Papa John’s pizza parties. In the ad, Sonny Weems demonstrates the only way to get Russian lessons: namely, with one sexy babe as tutor while, um, fully dressed in CSKA gear in a bathtub at a party. Until a teammate spoils the fun that is…

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One squad involved in the 2012 Euroleague Final Four is getting a bit of a short shrift in the tournament this time around – namely, the Žalgiris Kaunas “Cheer Up” dance team.

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This one goes out to the German-speakers and cheerleader fans among the BallinEurope audience – BiE suspects no shortage in either category – to perk up Monday morning here on the Continent. Check out the preparations undergone by the Alba Berlin dance team before a recent match at O2 World arena as well as some in-game performance. (Hey, at under five minutes, would you rather scope this or “Kobe Doin’ Work”? BiE thought so…

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Just because. (Courtesy PBL Twitter feed.)

You’re welcome.

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Sasha Vujacic an all-star game MVP? BiE knows it sounds crazy, but that’s what went down this weekend in Turkey during the TBL season break. In a game that pitted foreigners against Turks, the former NBA champion went for 24 points and dished five assists in a 140-139 barnburner settled by Besiktas’ Carlos Arroyo’s last-second three.

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BallinEurope’s man in the UK, Sam Chadwick, reports on last week’s British Basketball League Cup along with the concomitant traditional festivities. Read on like Newcastle rolled on…

This past weekend saw one of the many highlights on the BBL Calendar, when the BBL Cup Final took place at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. That game featured two of the league’s top teams when the first-place Newcastle Eagles (11-1) and the no. 5 Plymouth Raiders (6-2) went head to head.

The game started with Charles Smith dominating the game, going off for 21 points in the first quarter alone and on track to set a new BBL Cup points record (more on this later). Smith had 13 points within the first seven minutes and showed no signs of letting up. Charles and his 21 points outscored the Raiders 21-20 and the Eagles took a 15-point lead.

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If anyone ever doubted the athleticism and talent of high-level cheerleading squads, the video below will change your mind. Check out CSKA Moscow studs Andrei Kirilenko, Viktor Khryapa, Alexei Shved, Nenad Krstic and Jamont Gordon attempting to learn a few of the Red Foxes’ simpler moves with little success.

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It’s the secret desire of every professional basketball player: To blow off the obligations of the court and just, you know, shake that groove thing with the team’s cheerleaders.

Okay, so maybe the likes of Kobe Bryant aren’t actually into dance team dancing, but in Germany, Torrell Martin found a way to wow the crowd while sitting out a recent playoff game with Eisbären Bremerhaven despite nursing a hand injury. Check out the former Winthrop Eagle/Kepez Belediye stud at center of the cowboy-themed number presented by the lady Eisbären below.

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Happy Monday, everyone. To get that week started right, BallinEurope has compiled a healthy-sized video play list at which you may goggle over morning coffee. From all corners of Europe (and Portland, Oregon) came the action last week as the barrage of title-awarding begins on The Continent.

• First up: BiE offers congratulations to Žalgiris Kaunas, who took the Baltic Basketball League title over VEF Riga, 75-67. Tadas Klimavicius was the stud for the “Green White Boys” with a team-high 15 points to go with nine rebounds; Trevon Hughes was game high scorer, contributing 16 for Riga as well as five boards.

The BBL is infuriatingly short on video coverage – even on YouTube – but, um, here’s a swell clip of some rabid fans in that distinctive mode of European basketball…

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