BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Once again, Montepaschi Siena survives to play another day: The Euroleaguers managed to win the decisive game seven of the Serie A quarterfinal series at no. 4 seed Armani Milano, 90-80, last night. Below runs an impressive highlight clip of the top 10 plays from the series produced by the Italian league and starring J.R. Bremer, Ioannis Bourousis, Malik Hairston, David Moss (with quite the awesome block), Antonis Fotsis (who reciprocates on Moss), Viktor Sanikidze and, naturally, Pops Mensah-Bonsu.

Daniel Hackett also puts in an appearance within the ‘clip, but with his game-high 25 points in the decider showing his ridiculous range making him a threat from anywhere on the floor, this Serie A veteran gets a YouTube all his own…

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So a professional baller getting himself into trouble via a few ill-advised tweets is hardly news, but Daniel Hackett’s popping off on Twitter last night could have long-term ramifications for his standing on Montepaschi Siena for the remainder of 2012-13 and even for Team Italy in the future.

While sitting out Siena’s 72-68 loss at Armani Milano last night, Hackett took to calling out the referee crew for their poor officiating. In bon mots since removed as Hackett shut down his account shortly after tweeting boos, declarations that “this sucks” and ultimately “This is not basketball.”

Sportando and Italy-based Corriere dello Sport report that club officials are reviewing the situation with regard to keeping Hackett on the squad at all, while the former source implies that his position on the national team has become suddenly tenuous.

Prior bad/missed calls by the refereeing corps aside, Siena looks to have helped blown their own game with poor shot selection and generally uncharacteristic non-clutch play. With Milano up three with 40 seconds to go thanks to an overly rushed Siena possession, Leon Radosevic fouled out to give Kristjan Kangur two chances to extend the lead. Both free throws clanged, but the rebound chased down to lead to a corner three from Matt Janning.

After Milano answered with another three, Kangur was the beneficiary of a questionable decision earning him three chances at the charity stripe and, well, let’s just say the game degenerates into whistle after whistle … is this what sent Hackett over the edge?

As for Hackett’s injury, news on the severity and games to be missed are reportedly to be revealed today.

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Fans of the NFL will surely long remember Julio Jones’ taking out of a security guard during the NFC Championship Game; heck, the thing went viral immediately … in any case, BallinEurope’s got the European basketball equivalent for you.

Check out Montepaschi Siena’s Daniel Hackett living up to the “Tornado” sobriquet in his team’s unfortunate Serie A loss to Enel Brindisi on Monday night: After full-body checking an inopportunely-positioned cameraman after a hard and-one drive, referees and others rush to assistance while Hackett stays frosty and focused on getting back into the game … ouch.

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It’s never too late for the ‘Hangover (or so BiE’s telling himself). Excuses aside, following are a few Eurocentric impressions, notes, highlight clips – and the no. 1 reason why Barack Obama is thrilled the Los Angeles Lakers went down in the playoffs last season…

• Power vacuum in Italy? Coming into 2012-13, most pundits in the European basketball sphere reckoned Montepaschi Siena was due for an off year after an off offseason which saw them downgrade at several positions. And while it appears that Siena won’t be giving up its stranglehold on the Italian national title easily (they’re currently at 4-1; more on this shortly), the team’s dismal Euroleague play indicates this isn’t a Montepaschi team in the mold we’ve become accustomed to.

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BallinEurope today wishes a fond sayonara to longtime Montepaschi Siena staple Shaun Stonerook, who today announced his retirement from Euroleague basketball. Stonerook played in some 113 games for the Italian powerhouse and enjoyed two EL Final Four runs with the team. And so, as is the fashion here at BiE, today we present our YouTube-centric tribute to “Il Capitano.”

From last year, here’s a nice look at Stonerook’s life and times produced by the club itself; the video contains a mixture of Italian- (the commentary) and English-language (Stonerook himself) dialogue, but certainly worth a look by anyone not necessarily fluent in two tongues.

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In celebration of certainly still the most significant year in international basketball history, BallinEurope today begins the “Twenty years ago today” series in which we’ll peer back in time through the lens of YouTube to that era of morphing European national teams and Dream Team dominance.

In the wake of that Greatest Basketball Team Ever Assembled, much of the 1991-92 professional seasons themselves get the short shrift in the history books, but some quite interesting stuff was nevertheless happening on the Continent.

• The Euroleague boasted a cliffhanging thriller in Partizan Belgrade vs. Joventut Badalona. Badalona brought Harold Pressley (with averages of 20.3 points and 8.3 rebounds per EL game) and Rafael Jofresa, while the Black-and-Whites boasted local products Predrag Danilovic and Aleksanda Djordjevic. It was the latter who’d deliver the European championship to the storied franchise for its first and, to date, last such title ever.

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In clearing out the virtual desk of 2011-12 basketball season stuff, BallinEurope today presents this compilation of the year’s top Euro-centric buzzer-beaters. The requirements to make the list were two: the primary player in the buzzer-beater most be of European nationality or the shot must take place in a game featuring European teams; and the buzzer-beater must take place at the end of a quarter, i.e. no shot-clock buzzer-beaters considered.

Greater weight was given in consideration to the relative importance of the win earned with the highlight shot. Keeping one’s team alive is more important than YouTube glory, after all.

And on with the list. Firstly, honorable mentions go to:

• Travis Diener for Banco di Sardegna Sassari against Fabi Shoes Montegranaro on April 15. Sassari would go on to win in overtime, 79-77, and continue in a successful season which had them ultimately placing fourth in the Serie A. Unfortunately for the purposes of this post, not quite a buzzer-beater.

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At least this much is clear...

The three-year A-licenses are currently under review, but you gotta figure Caja Laboral Baskonia, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Anadolu Efes, Fenerbahçe Ülker, CSKA Moscow, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Montepaschi Siena and Žalgiris Kaunas are in. Asseco Prokom Gdynia is in the second year of its license, making them the 12th of the 24 teams.

Also up for review is Unicaja Malaga. While Spain is still even officially considered *the* best domestic or regional league in Europe (more on this momentarily), the big league could certainly defend a yanking of the license based on the team’s bottom-half finish in the Liga Endesa and consistently better recent performance by Valencia BC.

Virtus Roma is the only original A-license team to have been removed from the EL roll call, getting its placement in Euroleague ball “suspended for having finished in the bottom half of its national competition.” Unicaja might easily find itself on the Eurocup level for 2012-13; let’s just say a *lot* of things would have to happen to even get the team into the EL qualifiers.

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What’s that? You haven’t been watching the quarterfinal round of the Italian League’s playoffs? No problem: BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Enrico Cellini has – and he posts today about just what you’ve been missing, namely two cliffhanging, nail-biting finishes that finished off Virtus Bologna. (Ironically and mournfully, BiE notes Bologna’s elimination as dated the same as Kobe Bryant’s 2011-12 Los Angeles Lakers.) Cellini promises that the videos are the centerpiece and so those looking for classic buzzer-beaters need search no further than below the break.

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Yes, but *should* they be celebrating?

Well, Uygar Karaca may convince believers otherwise. In the first of a two-part series for BallinEurope.com, Karaca flips through the pages of recent EuroChallenge history to reveal the success – or lack thereof – championship clubs have experienced directly following a title bid. Hint: It’s pretty bleak stuff after 2004. Sorry, Beşiktaş…

Winning a competition, especially on the Continental level, is a great achievement. However, titles come with a price. When success exposes players to the market, for example, clubs with better offers take the stars away. Alternatively, in order to get a trophy, clubs sometimes spend more than they can afford, which triggers the process of eventual financial collapse.

In this article, I tried to see whether winning the FIBA EuroChallenge tournament signals brighter days for the club or rather indicates a peak with the way forward pointing downward. Continue Reading…