BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

A rough week doesn’t get any easier for Ratiopharm Ulm in its inaugural Eurocup Last 16 game tonight, with the Bundesliga side playing host to Red Star Belgrade after losing an 80-78 heartbreaker to FC Bayern Munchen on the weekend.

Sport Eagle TV got a few minutes with Ulm head coach Thorsten Liebenath and player Philipp Schwethelm after the Munich game to discuss the prospects of taking on one of this season’s European success stories; naturally, the focus is on Igor Rakočević, who was good for 18.7 points per game in the first phase of Eurocup 2012-13.

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All right, now everything about the 2010 FIBA World Championship is coming into focus!

For example, now we know how good the relatively unknown Lithuanian squad will be – because they beat Slovenia after having to come back and go overtime against the Czech Republic. Um, and Argentina showed they’re awesome by … blowing a 20-point lead at half on their home court. Uh, well, one thing we can all agree on, at least: Team France is damn near sunk before this thing starts after another litany of no-shows.

These ratings are sure to be shaken up after many of these teams will be participating in tournament play or one-off exhibition games against fellow Worlds competitors this weekend. Up until Saturday night, however, BallinEurope sees the power flowing in the following 16 directions…

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To little fanfare, the list of players invited to the training camp list for Team Germany was released in advance of the 2010 FIBA World Championship, as the German Basketball Federation (DBB) today posted 16 names invited by Dirk Bauermann. See if you can figure out if anyone’s missing.

Steffen Hamann, Lucca Staiger (ALBA Berlin); Demond Greene (Larissa); Yassin Idbihi, Heiko Schaffartzik (New Yorker Phantoms Braunschweig); Robin Benzing, Per Guenther (ratiopharm Ulm); Philipp Schwethelm (Eisbären Bremerhaven); Chad Toepper (Albuquerque Thunderbirds); Konrad Wysocki (Turow Zgorzelec); Elias Harris (Gonzaga); Jan-Hendrik Jagla (Asseco Prokom); Johannes Strasser, Tim Ohlbrecht (Telekom Baskets Bonn); Tibor Pleiss (Brose Baskets Bamberg); and Christopher McNaughton (EWE Baskets Oldenburg). Plus, “on call” is Patrick Femerling (Antalya BSB).

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Marbury: The man, the myth, the meltdown

Once again for your weekend edification, Ball in Europe presents the weekly column bringing you a capsule summary of, um, well, of how i killed some time this week obsessing over basketball.

Among this week’s highlights: Crying is for losers and Stephon Marbury; Europe makes a great career choice; and Allen Iverson’s best raps ever.

Of course, the biggest story in the hoops universe this week came from inside the asylum – sorry, i mean Stephon Marbury’s apartment. If you haven’t sampled this indescribable product of Generation YouTube, here’s a taste: A clip entitled “Stephon Marbury Crying (Official).”

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Headline news at the FIBA U20 European Championship Men semifinals was, of course, the crazy Italian comeback-then-upset of slick-looking Team Lithuania. On-scene reporter David Hein of heinnews provides his thoughts on the stunner of Rhodes in addition to the other youth basketball action going on down there.
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Going on this week is the FIBA U20 European Championship Men and hard-working sports reporter David Hein of heinnews is live in Rhodes to cover the action. From the heinnews website, then, comes reportage of basketball action in … the hotel buffet area?
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From the heinnews website comes coverage and analysis of Team Germany’s 21-man squad, from which head coach Dick Bauermann will ultimately be shaping his roster for this year’s Eurobasket tournament … but wait a minute. No Chris Kaman? No Dirk Nowitski?!?!? What in the name of Uwe Blab is going on here?
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