BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

As we await the two-game showdown between France and Belgium for the final spot in the FIBA Eurobasket 2009 tournament and Eurobasket Division B pool play enters the homestretch, Ball in Europe takes a speculative look at three national programs we might be hearing a lot more about in 2010 and beyond.

Finland. When Finland capped pool play in Group B of the Eurobasket Additional Qualification Road with an impressive 95-89 victory over Italy, an exclamation point was emphatically put on the team’s success in this tournament.

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With an extended roster of 19 all-time players waiting in the wings, Ball in Europe today releases the names of the Dream Team Europe coaching staff. To manage this elite squad, we’ll limit Dream Team Europe to four coaches in spite of reader Simas’ excellent (if unwieldy) solution reckoning that “if you have a coaching staff as big as NBA teams have with 53 assistant coaches, you can just write all the European coaches that come to mind.”

Without further ado, then, BallinEurope.com presents the greatest basketball managerial quartet never assembled: The Dream Team Europe coaching staff!

Gomelsky with USSR hero Sergey Belov

To head things up, we’re going to take The Continent’s own Red Auerbach over its Phil Jackson – and make no bones about it: Alexander Gomelsky does belong in a conversation with Mr. Celtic and the Zen Master. After all, Gomelsky paralled Auerbach’s Boston Celtics’ ridiculous run of nine NBA championship titles between 1957-1967 with nine Soviet Union league titles for CSKA Moscow in the 1970s. (This after bagging five national titles and three straight European Cups with ASK Riga.) Plus, CSKA played in the Euroleague finals three times during this period and took it all in 1971.

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I love it when a plan comes together. David Hein, he of heinnews.com, FIBAEurope.com and probably 10,000 other outlets, has wrapped coverage of the just-completed FIBA U20 European Championship Men. Having returned home to Germany from the competition in Rhodes, poor David sought ideas (more of them, i mean) for another basketball column to which to set his rapacious urge to sportswrite.

I skyped him: “Since you introduced us to all these fresh new players that are moving into top professional leagues – you know, guys like Georgios Bogris – during the U20s, why don’t you write a roundup of where they’ll be in future?”

And shazam! Hours later, Mr. Hein had produced a swell column entitled, “Where U20s are heading next season.” From Bogris to Vucevic, the list of names you’ll surely be seeing next year is the following.

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The man official PR is calling “a Euroleague legend” has had his contract extended by Panathinaikos. Few can wear the “legend” label as uncontroversially as Sarunas Jasikevicius, having won Euroleague titles with Panathinaikos, FC Barcelona and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Indeed, over at the Maccabi official team website, the current poll “Who’s the best point guard that Maccabi ever had?” sees Jasikevicius crushing the opposition with a 62% vote.

Congratulations, Panthinaikos. We’d wish you luck, but with Jasikevicius aboard for more, you need less of it than most.
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Whoa.

Ball in Europe readers know that sportswriter David Hein is currently on the FIBA U20 World Championship Men beat. Over at heinnews.com right now is posted a nice interview with Team Greece center Georgios Bogris; full interview available here. To whet your appetite a bit, here’s Bogris on his recent four-year contract signed with Panathinaikos Athens in what has to be one of the most concise summations of finally making the big leagues ever:

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Hark: It’s a slight shift in the balance of power. Veteran shooting guard Nikos Hatzivrettas has left his long-time team Panathinaikos to join Euroleague qualifiers Aris BSA, the club announced today. Signing a two-year deal, Hatzivrettas says goodbye to the team with which he won six Greek League titles and two Euroleague titles; he says hello to a squad which just may have earned a little more attention from its fellow Euroleague qualifiers.

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Yes, yes, it’s waaaaaaaaaay too early to be making serious predictions about specific games in the 2009-10 Euroleague regular season, but a leisurely look at the newly-released schedule reveals some clear highlights that’ll have Euroleague fanatics marking their calendars early. BallinEurope will be watching the following, for sure.

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Good news and bad news, definition and redefinition of “foreign player” ruled the basketball headlines in Serbia and Greece last week. While the reigning basketball federation of the latter expanded the number of roster slots available to non-EU players from two to three, Serbia not only limited the number of foreign players allowed on team rosters to four, but found a highly restrictive way to classify those “foreigners.” Reportage from heinnews.

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Say what you want about Euroleague.net, but somebody over there has good ideas about filling a lull in the seasonal schedule. Currently running at the website is the “Euroleague Video Faceoff” tournament featuring video submissions from the teams’ cheerleading squads, and with winners determined by popular vote. The following are one man’s choices for the quarterfinal round, shaped by hours of research, i.e. watching the videos again and again.

And again.

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Not only was yesterday’s Euroleague group draw an official tipoff of sorts to actual play in the 2009-10 Euroleague season, it also marked the first opportunity of the year for league chiefs to publicly swell with pride at their teams, show off (mostly) gaudy neckties, talk some diplomatically-worded trash, and provide good quotes for blogs like BallinEurope.com.

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