Erazem Lorbek 52
Giant slayers: Caja Laboral Baskonia wins 70-69, pushes FC Barcelona to brink
In a season already spiced with big playoff upsets, Caja Laboral Baskonia may be adding the biggest to the list yet, as the Basque Country boys held on through an insane final minute of play to eke out a 70-69 win over FC Barcelona. And now things in Spain have become suddenly unthinkable as the […]
Top 10 reasons Americans should watch the ACB finals
Yes, yes, BallinEurope realizes that U.S. basketball fandom is currently enraptured with the NBA Championship, if only to determine just which team y’all hate more. But still: A true roundball supporter wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to tune into some top-level ball, would you? As Pete Mickeal once put it, “Hey, there’s a world outside […]
Statistically dominant Tiago Splitter wins ACB MVP award
Congratulations to Tiago Splitter, who, to the surprise of extremely few, took home the ACB MVP title for 2009-10. Statistically, Splitter dominated the Spanish League while leading the ACB “playing ranking value” over 27 of the league’s 34 weeks. He ended up ranking first in ranking points per game (at 21.2, he blew away second-place […]
Euroleague championship trivia
From the Le Sais-Tu Department comes a few interesting news bites on this evening’s Euroleague Championship participants. Read on, triviamongers!
Euroleague Final Four head-to-head matchups: CSKA Moscow vs. FC Barcelona
With the Euroleague Final Four mere days away, the giddiness increases at the prospect of figuring that, yes, without hyperbole, basketball fans could well be getting a complete slate of four classic games. While FC Barcelona and Olympiacos are the heavy favorites (and, ahem, BallinEurope.com’s teams predicted to make the finals at the beginning of […]
Video: Euroleague All-Star nominees
From the ever-busy In Case You Missed It Department, below the break runs a few highlights from each of the 10 all-Euroleaguers for 2009-10. Based on a combination of fan and media voting, this final 10 will be further divided into All-Euroleague first- and second teams. The contents list for this three minutes of basketball […]
Everything you've always wanted to know about Barcelona vs. Unicaja (in English)
On Saturday, perhaps the marquee matchup on the ACB slate – if for historical significance only – will be the FC Barcelona vs. Unicaja match. The league’s official website has quite the extensive collection of facts ‘n’ figures about this match and the 15-year record of meetings between these two clubs, of which BallinEurope attempted […]
Madrid breaks through, beats Barça, creates blueprint?
Thanks to their powerful standings in European basketball, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid were guaranteed to meet at least six times in 2009-10 going into last night’s Euroleague quarterfinals game; today, that number is seven, as Madrid handed Barça a 70-63 loss, its biggest of the season thus far.
Barcelona in with win at Valladolid (Si, there will be highlights)
The big news from Spain – with probable ramifications for much of Europe; so is basketball in 2010 – was the Valladolid-FC Barcelona result. Barça came to town, donned the wacky day-glo uniforms and decisively took down Valladolid by a score of 73-59 behind Terrence Morris’ 20 points and eight rebounds. It was all the […]
Gasol FIBA Men’s Player of the Year, wins both expert and popular vote
BiE supposes the only suspense with this award this year was how close things would get and who placed second. So, after the ho-hum announcement that Pau Gasol was chosen FIBA Europe Men’s Player of the Year for a second consecutive time, we today know the answers. In order, then: Not very close at all, […]
The Frank Euroleague roundup: Top 16, week two
It’s time for the look back at the wacky Euroleague week that was with Francesco Cappelletti. This week, BallinEurope’s man in Italy examines messing with rotations in Olympiacos and Unicaja; praises Partizan for the potential blueprint win over FC Barcelona; and chides the narcissistic defending champions for their shameful general laziness. No instant replay, Partizan […]
Precedent for a 10-0 Regal FC Barcelona: Recent notable Euroleague winning streaks
Tonight FC Barcelona looks to build on its red-hot run in 2009/10 by closing out a perfect 10-0 run through the Euroleague regular season. Assuming Barca does shut down Montepaschi Siena yet again, what can recent history tell us about an undefeated team’s chances the rest of the way? Since the 2009/10 represented a switch […]