EuroLeague 174
From El-Amin to Vilnius: The week in video clips
Okay, how about closing out the workweek with a few videos? BiE knew you wouldn’t mind! So feast your eyes on a half-dozen clip starring the likes of Khalid El-Amin Danilo Gallinari, Jan Vesely, Sofoklis Schortsanitis, Jeremy Pargo and the International Choir of Vilnius! BallinEurope was pleased as punch to see Gallinari score ESPN “Highlight […]
BallinEurope’s completely relativistic 2010-11 All-Star Team (or, What? You’ve never heard of Bambale Osby?)
With most domestic basketball hitting a halfway point and the Euroleague into its second round, BallinEurope today pays tribute to some outstanding individual performances by naming its all-star team. No relative merits or penalties were assessed for the league in which BiE’s all-stars compete, and domination in one league was a top criteria for making […]
Worth another look: Khalid El-Amin's Upset of the Year capper
Readers of BallinEurope know that BiE loathes hyperbole in sports reportage. But seriously, Lietuvos Rytas upending Caja Laboral Baskonia, 89-86, in Spain last night? Upset of the 2010-11 season thus far, no? So below the break runs a short clip of heroics from Khalid El-Amin, who contributed 22 points on crazy 7-of-8 overall shooting, and […]
Messina, Madrid to Garbajosa: You’re free to leave (perhaps to Unicaja, Cajasol or Lagun Aro)
Forced to make roster moves with the arrival of Mirza Begic, Real Madrid coach Ettore Messina yesterday placed former Toronto Raptor forward Jorge Garbajosa on the transfer list This morning, Spanish sports news outlets are abuzz with the news that at least three serious ACB suitors have stepped forward to express interest in obtaining Garbajosa: […]
Top 100 Teams in Europe: Barcelona back to no. 1
BallinEurope took a little extra time with the Top 100 Teams in Europe list this week after a suggestion that certain ACB teams were getting the shaft of non-inclusion in the calculations – and so the pool has been widened accordingly. In calculating the Top 100 for this week and heretofore, all teams in major […]
Euroleague Top 16 highlights: Day one
It wasn’t exactly the most inspiring set of Euroleague basketball games last night, with all four losing sides “held” under 60 points and nearly all blown out. (The operative verb gets quotation marks because the three crushed teams all shot under 40% overall with incredibly abysmal numbers from beyond the arc, to some extent helping […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Heading into the Top 16
With just a few more hours before the Euroleague gets fired into action, BallinEurope has just enough time to get in some quickie power rankings! Purely subjective, these rankings have been based on recent Euroleague and domestic league performance, but also on serious speculation about season-break transactions. Enjoy the games!
FC Barcelona: Anticipating Maccabi Tel Aviv clash with brief video review
Since BallinEurope has been shamefully derelict in his duties as high priest of the Church of Rubio this season, let’s run some FC Barcelona clips in preparation of the defending Euroleague champs’ incipient matchup against thus far the top 2010-11 EL team Maccabi Tel Aviv! In Euroleague terms, Barça was last seen taking out BiE’s […]
Kalev/Cramo scores big upset, nice poster dunk
Europe’s dunk of the week may well be the posterization that went down in perhaps Europe’s upset of the week, namely BC Kalev/Cramo’s 77-70 VTB United League win over Euroleague side Asseco Prokom on Wednesday night. To make matters worse for the Polish side, Ratko Varda (and Prokom’s entire half-court D, essentially) was caught completely […]
The Top 100 Teams in Europe: Calm before the storm edition
All right, another Thursday means another look at BallinEurope’s Top 100 Teams in Europe chart, the last until the big pan-Continental leagues gear up again with sweet 16 action. (BiE was just waiting for the dust to settle in Athens after the PAO-Olympiacos match, but settling may yet be a few days in the making.) […]
Flashing back with Olympiacos and Panathinaikos
It’s kinda like time travel, of a sort. From the Plus Ça Change Department via the ever-fantastic and -enthusiastic Basketball Dreamer comes this link to a New York Times story entitled “European Basketball: Passionate Greek Drama” … from 1997.
Notes on Panathinaikos-Olympiacos, most important game of 2010-11
If tonight’s Panathinaikos-Olympiacos match isn’t the most important game thus far in the 2010-11 basketball season in Europe, BiE can’t think of what would be. Of no little significance in this clash of the titans, too, is its status as the first meeting between the teams since the 2009-10 EΣAKE championship final game, a.k.a. “The […]