BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

The 2010-11 professional basketball season may effectively be over this weekend, with a final championship series game scheduled in Germany tonight plus a possible elimination game in Italy happening on Sunday. But no worries: the end of club play means the beginning of summertime national-team tournaments, starting with the 2011 FIBA Eurobasket Women competition.

In the land of Nowitzki, another crazy Bundesliga tournament will be finished tonight as Brose Baskets Bamberg hosts Alba Berlin in the decisive game five for the BBL title and a Euroleague bid for 2011-12.

The back-and-forth series saw game four won handily by Alba Berlin, 87-67, after a shaky first quarter. Derrick Allen led the way for Berlin with 18 points in knotting up the series at 2-2. Game five is available for watching live online via the German-language Sport 1 YouTube channel. Tipoff is set for 8.30pm CET (2.30pm EST).

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Can it all be over so quickly? February Madness peaked this weekend in Europe, with several domestic cup tournaments being played out and celebrations aplenty. BallinEurope this morning provides a rundown of the action – and, naturally, video clips. Without further ado, then, let’s look in on the insanity.

• To no one’s surprise, Spanish superpowers FC Barcelona and Real Madrid indeed met in the Copa del Rey final with La Blaugrana overcoming their rivals playing on their home court, 68-60. Check out, as the league’s official website, says a collection of clips including “Alley oops terribles de [Boniface] N’Dong y [Fran] Vázquez, mate furioso de Clay Tucker, D’Or Fischer que pone el candado a su aro … ¡Mucha diversión en la Final!”

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Team Turkey/Fenerbahçe Ülker guard Ömer Onan makes a few declarations in this morning’s Today’s Zaman, summing up well the current state of TBL and Turkish international ball.

“[ACB] aside,” opines Onan, “in Turkish basketball, we have long surpassed important European domestic leagues, including the Italian and Greek leagues. In these countries, only one or two teams are of a high quality and at a high level. We, on the other hand, have at least six or seven clubs that have invested greatly in basketball and have many star players.”

(For the record, the top seven teams in the TBL standings currently are Euroleague’s Fenerbahçe and Efes Pilsen Istanbul; Eurocup teams Banvit BK, Galatasaray Cafe Crown and Beşiktaş Cola Turka; Eurochallenge contenders Pinar Karsiyaka; and Olin Edirne.)

Onan goes on to state that “I believe Turkish basketball has advanced to a higher grade. We are getting more successful results both from our national team and our domestic teams. Efes Pilsen and Fenerbahçe Ülker must push for [Euroleague quarterfinals]. I believe in the coming years, both Efes and we will be making it to the final four on a regular basis.”

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Word has it that an overload of traffic brought down the live broadcast of today’s Euroleague Top 16 draw. So, in case you were shut out, the groupings for the next round of top-level European action looks like so:

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“Do[es] all the little things with surprising grace and feeling – and an iron will to win.” – characterization of prototypical Lithuanian player in FreeDarko’s The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac

BallinEurope’s latest obsession started with a tweet. Specifically, a message from BiE’s main Lithuanian, Martynas “Air” Pocius. Pocius retweeted a fascinating stat about his Žalgiris Kaunas dug up by In The Game Basket, namely:

Žalgiris turns the ball over every four possessions in the Euroleague. Still they’re 4:3 and one win away from Top16.

Now we can make that 5-3 and still one win or one Baskonia loss away from the Top 16 after another typical 2010 Žalgiris outing against Asseco Prokom last week. In that match, the Lithuanian side eked out a 72-69 away win in Poland, though the home side had slight advantages in shooting (admittedly poor on both ends, as Prokom edged with 32% overall against Kaunas’ 30.5%) and rebounding.

And, of course, there were these statistics for Žalgiris: 59 possessions, 15 turnovers. Or 25.4%.

What gives? Join BiE on a romp through the numbers … and a lesson in that “will to win” principle expressed in real on-court terms.

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He’s back! Emerging out of hiding (or perhaps digging himself out of work with youth squads plus Italian-language sports media) is BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Francesco Cappelletti. As the season progresses, Cappelletti will be opining as to what really went down in a week’s worth of Euroleague matches. Today, four key themes that will be threading their way through the 2010-11 season – and the frank take on ‘em.

Welcome back Euroleague … erm … Turkish Airlines Euroleague! Someone just said you look like the poorest edition in recent years and that your groups are less competitive than Eurocup’s, but we love you just the way you are anyway.

What do you offer for 2010-2011? Yeah, the unbeatable Regal Barcelona and the usual group of pretenders, divided between those for whom spending money is no problem even amid civil disorder (for information, phone Athens) and teams able to hide behind the justification of cycles coming to an end just to put some money away waiting for financially better times: That’s the case of Montepaschi Siena and CSKA Moscow.

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In advance of the draws on Thursday, Euroleague basketball have announced the seeds of the 22 Euroleague teams that will be divvied into four divisions in the 2010-11 season, as well as the 16 teams competing for the remaining two EL spots in the Euroleague Qualifying Rounds.

This seedings do not of course determine the draw but, together with some of the regional restrictions, will serve to limit the possibilities a bit – and naturally create at least one group perceived to be the top-heavy clichéd “Group of Death.” The rankings are done on a purely mathematical basis and based in three years’ worth of team performance.

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Kinsey was big for Fenerbahce

Congratulations go out today to Fenerbahçe Ülker, who tore apart Efes Pilsen at home, 76-51, to take the Turkish Basketball League title in six games.

Four players – Mirsad Turkcan, Roko Ukic, Semih Erden and Tarance Kinsey – scored in double figures for Fenerbahçe, while Efes Pilsen was held to a lowly sub-33% on 16-of-49 shooting from the floor. Kinsey contributed eight rebounds as well.

Charles Smith was about the only hot hand for Efes Pilsen, turning in a double-double of 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting and 10 rebounds.

The series marked the fourth time Fenerbahçe and Efes Pilsen met for the TBL championship and the third in four years; however, today we’re mostly left wondering if in fact this would be the very last meeting between Turkey’s own Lakers and Celtics.

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Scariolo: No, really, i can explain everything...

With one more week of Euroleague play to go before the field of viable contenders officially shrinks again, Ball in Europe contributor Francesco Cappelletti wraps the round that was in the big league. In this week’s roundup, Signor C. laments Montepaschi Siena’s fate, Sergio Scariolo’s precarious position and the reason Olympiacos might yet give Barca a workout before all is said and done (Hint: It starts with “Linas” and ends with “Kleiza”).

Group F focus
Oddly, the group which could have been in doubt until the buzzer of Week 6 suddenly has two qualified teams after five weeks: These are Real Madrid and Maccabi Tel Aviv, teams which will meet next Thursday at Palacio Vistalegre to define a first place currently in possession of the Israeli side for their 81-76 victory of February 4.

Montepaschi Siena was shocked by a 43-point fourth quarter scored by Alan Anderson and teammates. OK, take out the final (meaningless) 10 points, and 33 remain on the back of the Italian champions. How was this possible? MPS had recovered during the third period thanks to big hearted Terrell McIntyre and bad offensive decisions from previously unstoppable Doron Perkins, but, I mean, if you play with six men (seven minutes of nothing for Nikos Zisis in crisis, Ksistof Lavrinovic plagued by back spasms), and you enter the final fraction with a 3-point advantage at Yad Eliyahu, well, you know your destiny.

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Whilst watching the Efes Pilsen-Montepaschi Siena game with horror fascination last night – probably somewhere around the Ferdinando Minucci ejection – BiE couldn’t help but wonder what Francesco Cappelletti, this website’s man in Italy, thought of it all.

Seriously. Montepaschi came into the game having looked strong in Euroleague competition this season thus far; with a good-enough win over Maccabi Tel Aviv to open the Euroleague Final 16 round and coming off a near-100 point win over Napoli in Serie A play, the visiting Italians entered the game a 3.5-point favorite.

So, to put it in a nutshell, what happened? Whither the outclassed play? And what does this say about Serie A ball, over which the suddenly visibly flawed MPS currently rules at 16-0. Managing to corner the busy Cappelletti for five minutes on chat, BiE asked a few simple questions.

BallinEurope: Okay, so basically, the question is this: What the fuck happened to MPS last night? i.e. What were the keys to their defeat, especially after that huge win the other day?

Francesco Cappelletti: So many reasons.

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