Good morning, basketball world! BallinEurope presents its morning briefing with five items for your perusal, including trouble in Cyprus, Noah sailing in for a jam, and the state of Britain’s wheelchair basketball team. Enjoy and, like they say in the ‘States, thank the gods, it’s Friday!
• FIBA and Eurobasket.com in international incident? As attempts to unify the island of Cyprus continue, the politics of basketball may be interfering. A Turkish news outlet known as “Today’s Zaman” reports that:
“…a decision by popular European basketball portal www.eurobasket.com to include the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (KKTC) basketball league in its reviews have been another source of uneasiness for the Greek Cypriot government. Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou has appealed to the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), asking for their intervention to withdraw the reviews referring to the league in the KKTC, which is not internationally recognized. However, editors of the Web site refused to back down and said they would continue publishing similar reviews.”
• Noah’s stock rising. After Brandon Jennings, Joakim Noah has received much love from the NBA hype machine this season and why not? Check out the dynamism on full display here with the one-handed jam against the Utah Jazz.
• Upset! (And other good games, too.) Arguably the best day of Euroleague action since the opener, Week 5 Day 2 featured the Partizan upset of Olympiacos and that nice Baskonia-CSKA Moscow match. Slickly produced official video here.
• Changes coming to British wheelchair squad. Britain continues to take pride in its wheelchair basketball team which took third place at the 2009 European championship in Poland. Simon Munn, 41-year-old team captain, discusses his future plans and impending retirement.
• Finally, just because, here’s something called the Endorphin Basketball Association. You gotta love YouTube, eh?
