Ball in Europe – European Basketball Blog

Coach Ivanovic may now exhale

Better late than never (totally BiE’s fault, let me tell you) comes Ball in Europe’s dispatch from Francesco Cappelletti rounding up the week that was in Euroleague basketball. For your amusement and edification, Francesco discusses, among other topics, the Terrell McIntyre Backup Curse, which teams should sweep into the Final Four, why Maccabi Tel Aviv is so good in 2009-10 and why Cibona Zagreb should be awesome in 2010-11.

Thrilling night
When a Bojan Bogdanovic-less Cibona Zagreb was up 72-58 with three minutes to go, Caja Laboral’s nightmare was very close to become reality. Then, a 17-2 run handled by Marcelinho Huertas turned the lights out for an overtime everyone knew would not be balanced at all. Baskonia scored 24 points in five minutes to ensure a gap BC Khimki couldn’t fill. With radio and voices running, the 22 point-margin BC Khimki had over Olympiacos to begin the fourth quarter, eventually becoming a 96-83 final score, was insufficient to reach second place in Group H.

Dusko Ivanovic can breathe again now, as his team qualified for the playoffs. But we have to thank Cibona, which was able to play their game even after elimination, just for the love of the game.

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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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While not interested in passing definitive judgment, we think it would be useful and fair to take a look at the European basketball panorama. There will be no ratings or rankings here, just a snapshot of what the most important ballin’ countries offer us.

Ten years into the third millennium, it’s common to hear repeated concepts about European community and a sense of brotherhood, but the idea of “European basketball” elicits language only indicating something is wrong. Disunity: That’s the main word for the variety of ways to develop basketball in Europe. European basketball was well on its way until five to six years ago, when internal division began to decrease European ball’s opportunity to become a serious alternative to a NBA bereft of stories and talent to sell – yes, that was before Lebron James’ era.

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T-Mc: What can we say?

With a scene-shifting week three of Euroleague Top 16 play in the books, BallinEurope’s Francesco Cappelletti defines his surprise, from Montepaschi’s masterful play to Sasha Kaun’s success to the curse of a Panathinaikos title defense, and more. Read on!

Pianigiani’s lesson to Messina
“I think it was a masterpiece from my players. One of the most difficult games since I started coaching. We were tired, consumed, without an important player against a team that could exploit our problems. We’ll enjoy this night to the fullest”: With these words and a smiling face, coach Simone Pianigiani commented on the game between Montepaschi and Real Madrid.

Honestly, he was right; Siena got the expected reaction after a disastrous exhibition in Istanbul, but the win was huge, much more than the fans and staff were waiting for. Even more so because the victory came despite the absence of Ksistof Lavrinovic, a player as key as only Terrell McIntyre is. Real wanted Montepaschi to play a slow game, to defend strongly and to deny the top facets of the Italians’ game: fastbreaks and transition play.

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Archibald: The Boss pins hopes on mate

Hello, everybody, and greetings from Euroleague headquarters! This is Javier Gancedo of Euroleague.net, ready to give you all some thoughts about our very own Sporting Bet Euroleague Fantasy Challenge – with just four rounds to go in the competition.

First and foremost, what an exciting Top 16 this is! If anyone had thought that CSKA Moscow, Olympiacos, Partizan and Asseco Prokom would be the four undefeated teams after two rounds, nobody would have believed him. The Top 16 has provided surprises, excitement, incredible action and outstanding drama. The NBA would *kill* to have all this in mid-February: that which makes us strong. Euroleague – and also Eurocup – competitions are as exciting as they can be, and everything will get better from now on. Every single game counts. From now on, every single basket will be decisive in most games…

As for fantasy basketball … well, I had an OK week, I guess. My team Meet the Boss ranks 508th overall, is in fourth place in the BallinEurope Invitational Challenge, but I can only finish second overall because our good man Eurofootball is unstoppable. I have been second in the previous two editions of this Ball in Europe private league.

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Salamanca's big dreams up to Lyttle

The Euroleague Women’s “Eighth-final playoffs” conclude tonight with three best-of-three series looking to be settled. Teams already set to play in EL Women quarterfinals include Spartak Moscow region, Fenerbahce Ulker, UMMC Ekaterinburg, Good Angels Kosice, and Ros Casares.

The winner of tonight’s Halcon Avenida-Bourges Basket match will see Ros Casares in the next round; surely to be considered a favorite to take the entire competition, Ros Casares has outscored opponents by an average 16 points in 15 Euroleague Women games played thus far. A quarterfinal pairing of Ros Casares against Halcon Avenida seems like a dream matchup of star teams – except that the Salamanca side has been stumbling as of late.

Despite a roster featuring Team Spain sensations Marta Xargay and Alba Torrens together with all-around threat Sancho Lyttle (averaging 17.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, and 2.4 steals per in 12 Euroleague Women games), Halcon Avenida finds its backs against the wall despite a recent five-game win streak in which Salamanca thrice outscored opponents by 18 or more. The last of that opposition was Bourges, who pulled off the gritty home win over the heavy favorites last Friday.

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BiE's Holden a spot on the ballot for J.R.

The waffling is over! After a couple of weeks of mulling over the field of 50 candidates for ten spots on the Euroleague All-Decade Team, the final decision has been made (and whoo, was that painful) and the ballot submitted. The following, then, is how the official BallinEurope ballot for the 2010s all-stars, along with some of the thought process a la Euroleague Fantasy Boss Javier Gancedo, ended up.

Four choices were obvious:

• Sarunas Jasikevicius,

• Juan Carlos Navarro,

• Dejan Bodiroga, and

• Theo Papaloukas. BiE reckons that membership on Dream Team Europe (first inclusion or no) and/or the official BallinEurope All-Decade All-European Team gets you onto the Euroleague All-Decade squad.

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Vujosevic: Among the best. Really.

It’s time for the look back at the wacky Euroleague week that was with Francesco Cappelletti. This week, BallinEurope’s man in Italy examines messing with rotations in Olympiacos and Unicaja; praises Partizan for the potential blueprint win over FC Barcelona; and chides the narcissistic defending champions for their shameful general laziness.

No instant replay, Partizan wins
The rule says that, when the buzzer sounds, the ball is no longer playable. This was the reason for the theatrical scene in Belgrade, wherein instant replay helped coaches and referees solve a risky situation. Pete Mickeal went with the hook shot over Slavko Vranes at the end of the overtime, and Lawrence Roberts swept the ball away from the rim. If the ball was over the rim, referees must make a goaltending call and Regal FC Barcelona credit for the (unmade) basket and the away win. But the ball was considered not fully over the rim, so Roberts’ action was legal.

Luckily, Partizan won. They deserved it. One week after having beaten Panathinaikos in Athens, the Serbian boys stopped the best team in Europe and made them play like no other had before. Dule Vujosevic can really aspire to stand on the podium of European coaches alongside Ettore Messina and Zelimir Obradovic, not only for his ability to develop young prospects in a hurry but also for his tactical knowledge: This week’s game was an example of how a coach can influence a game closed in the forecasts.

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Pekovic: The Boss' buddy

Hello everybody, this is once again Javier Gancedo, as always from Euroleague Basketball. Well, it was not a bad fantasy week for my team, Meet The Boss. I scored 166.2 points, moved up into the Top 600 overall, was the best team this week in the BallinEurope Invitational Challenge private league and now rank fifth in the global standings. Things could be worse, after all.

This will be an outstanding Top 16 week. First of all, we have Maccabi hosting Madrid, which is a hell of a game by all means; this marks the 40th showdown between both teams in European club competitions (all in the Euroleague, unless I’m mistaken). Then we have Zalgiris-CSKA and Partizan-Regal FCB with strong basketball atmospheres: Big games all over the continent! In other words, if you are a Euroleague fan, it’s time to sit back and enjoy an outstanding basketball week. Of course, if you are a diehard fan of any of the 16 teams alive in the competition, you won’t sit back and relax. It’s all part of what’s known around here as DEVOTION.

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Five games are on the Euroleague slate tonight; five outcomes are left to fate and more than one interesting storyline already unfolds in 2010.

The feature matchup this evening, as far as oddmakers at Ball in Europe sponsor Bet 365 are concerned at least, would be Montepaschi at Istanbul. Efes Pilsen is one of three home underdogs tonight and, with the way this team appears to be rife with internal dissension, this line is no surprise. The Efes Pilsen meltdown is surely on the horizon and one is only surprised this handicap isn’t greater: Go MPS minus the points.

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