May 2012 51
The Euroleague’s top 33 (or who will compete in the 2012-13 EL)
This just in. The Euroleague has announced prospective licensing for the 2012-13 season; a few surprises in here, at least as far as BallinEurope is concerned… A-license teams include:
Pops the tops: Mensah-Bonsu leads Besiktas to win, produces fantastic highlight clips
Now that leagues are heading into their championship homestretch, the crème de la crème in Europe is tending to rise to the top – perhaps none more so than BallinEurope fave Pops Mensah-Bonsu. (And yeah, BiE has heard of that Vassilis Spanoulis guy, but run with yet for a moment.) Not only did Pops earn […]
Euroleague 2012-13: An attempt to deduce the composition (plus Official Fearless Prediction™)
Yesterday, the basketball-centered bit of the Twitter universe was centered in two real-life locales: New York City and Barcelona. Topics in play were the falling of ping-pong balls in New York City and Euroleague’s incipient decision on the construction of Euroleague 2012-13. Hopefully, BallinEurope will get something together on the former later, but for now, […]
Who needs the Adriatic League?
With the recent announcement that the 2011-12 champions won’t in fact be seeking a second go-around in the Adriatic League and hard economic realities facing many Serbian and Croatian clubs, BallinEurope contributor Marko Savkovic today asks the hard question about one of Europe’s most prestigious associations. Something is always up in the Adriatic League. After […]
Red reign forecast? Olympiacos on brink of Greek title after beating Panathinaikos, 84-72
Olympiacos shrugged off both history and the Dimitris Diamantidis-Mike Batiste duo last night in taking game three of the Greek League championship series over rivals Panathinaikos, 84-72. With a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series, the Reds are poised to take its first domestic league title since 1997; historians will of course note that ’97 […]
List of European champions, 2011-12: End of May update edition
Basketball grinds on in Europe’s three dozen or so domestic leagues and so BallinEurope today updates the “List of European Champions” page. Since last posting, new champs have been crowned in Israel (guess who), Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Holland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Romania. Things are progressing meanwhile in Europe’s larger leagues including Spain, Greece, […]
Serge Ibaka will even block your access
Tweet of the day? That’s an easy one. Wrote Twitterer Keaton Eberly, “Dang, he blocks everything.” Who’s “he”? Team Spain/Oklahoma City Thunder force in the middle Serge Ibaka, of course. I mean, look at what the Iblaka did to the image Eberly posted with Instagram – and this after amassing 20 in five games against […]
Ramunas Siskauskas: The BallinEurope video tribute
On Monday, European basketball great Ramunas Šiškauskas announced his retirement from the game: A story that was noteworthy enough for even North Korean sports fans to be notified. In his official statement, Šiškauskas said that he’d “made my choice in the middle of the season. It was not connected with anything specific – I just […]
Brose Baskets Bamberg GM: Tibor Pleiss injury not serious
As reported on BallinEurope earlier today, prospective Oklahoma City Thunderer/current Brose Baskets Bamberg big man Tibor Pleiss was knocked out of Sunday’s Bundesliga playoff game with Artland Dragons with a knee injury. Heinnews has just reported, however, that, according to team GM Wolfgang Heyder, an MRI examination showed that “Fortunately there was nothing torn and […]
Incredibile! Back-to-back buzzer-beaters bring Banco Sardegna Sassari into semifinals
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 […]
The BallinEurope All-American Euroleague team (also all-Russian, -Greek and -former Yugoslavian teams)
Now here’s an argument starter for you … with much debate perpetually going on among European basketball fans vis-à-vis the influence of American and/or NBA players on the Euroleague, BiE decided to take a look back at the 2011-12 season in hopes of drawing some comparison on an individual, player-by-player level. Below, then, runs four […]
German Bundesliga playoffs: Bamberg, Ulm grab Games One at home; Pleiss injures knee
The semifinals are underway in Germany and, as always, David Hein has one eye on the action there. Read on to find out about the Brose Baskets Bamberg-Artland Dragons and Ratiopharm Ulm-s.Oliver Baskets matchups in game one … plus, a bit of distressing news for forward-thinking Oklahoma City Thunder fans. The top two seeds in […]