Ogilvy all smiles after upset
In what was not exactly a shooting clinic – Beşiktaş (10-7 in TBL play in 2010-11) collectively was “good” for 35% overall shooting on 20-of-57 while Efes Pilsen (13-4) managed 37.5%, including a woeful 4-of-15 success rate on threes – the Eagles did not miss their American headliner, who will be sidelined for some time yet by injury.
Team Australia’s A.J. Ogilvy contributed one of his best games in weeks with a 19-point, 11-rebound effort for Beşiktaş, while the only other double-digit scorer was the Brewers’ Igor Rakocevic with 12 points.
No video highlights are yet available, but you might want to keep half an eye on the official video site of the Turkish Cup.
In today’s matches, it’ll be Galatasaray Café Crown (13-4) vs. Olin Ederne (9-8) and Fenerbahçe Ülker (15-2) vs. Banvit (14-3), the latter of which features the top two teams in Turkish basketball. Beşiktaş will square off against Trabzonspor in the ‘Cup quarterfinals tomorrow night.
The changes begin near the top in this week’s edition of the BallinEurope Top 100 Teams list, as Montepaschi’s third consecutive Euroleague loss dumps the Italian side down to no. 3, passed by their most recent vanquisher, Real Madrid. The top 20 stays fairly stable thereafter, with some jostling of position but no seismic shifts.
BallinEurope took a little extra time with the Top 100 Teams in Europe list this week after a suggestion that certain ACB teams were getting the shaft of non-inclusion in the calculations – and so the pool has been widened accordingly. 
It wasn’t exactly the most inspiring set of Euroleague basketball games last night, with all four losing sides “held” under 60 points and nearly all blown out. (The operative verb gets quotation marks because the three crushed teams all shot under 40% overall with incredibly abysmal numbers from beyond the arc, to some extent helping the opposition onto victories.)
So Žalgiris gets its coach fired after playing .800 ball through 20 games, Spanish powerhouses lose in Lithuania and Germany, Valencia kills Milano, Efes Pilsen stuns PAO … just another week in Euroleague 2010-11, eh? And after happenings aplenty, it sounds like time for another edition of BallinEurope’s Official Euroleague Power Rankings! Let’s go!
Apologies for the tardiness of this column, dear readers, but the Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings are just as fun and informative on Sundays as they are on Saturdays! With four teams through into the Top 16 round and several more on the bubble, who’s cruising and who’s losing? BiE says the two dozen squads stack up this way…
