EuroLeague 174
Turnover City: Solving the mystery of Zalgiris Kaunas
“Do[es] all the little things with surprising grace and feeling – and an iron will to win.” – characterization of prototypical Lithuanian player in FreeDarko’s The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac BallinEurope’s latest obsession started with a tweet. Specifically, a message from BiE’s main Lithuanian, Martynas “Air” Pocius. Pocius retweeted a fascinating stat about his Žalgiris […]
Translate this, says Obradovic
Could this be the Greek version of “Practice??!!??!?!” While we all love to dig on those outrageous blowups of coaches or athletes routinely getting repeat views and remixes on boob tube and YouTube, in Europe there’s at least one sort of person who doesn’t: The interpreters. One particularly long-suffering translator working with Panathinaikos coach Zeljko […]
Olympiacos beats Spirou Charleroi, advances to Euroleague Top 16
In last night’s special edition of Monday Night Euroleague Basketball, Olympiacos clinched its place in – and eliminating Spirou Charleroi from – the sweet sixteen of the big league with an 80-69 win in France. Thanks to the win in fact, Group B has been settled: The Reds join Real Madrid, Unicaja Malaga, and Lottomatica […]
J.R. Giddens: Main goal not the NBA, but “to be the best person I can”
Over at Real GM, they’re taking a bit of a detour from their NBA focus to present an interview with J.R. Giddens, guard with Asseco Prokom Gdynia and formerly of BiE alma mater University of New Mexico. After an infamous bar fight in which he was stabbed, Giddens transferred from the University of Kansas to […]
Cyril Julian: From SLUC Nancy to oenology
Call him a “Warrior,” call him SLUC Nancy’s former savior, call him one of the best French players of the past 10 years never to play in the NBA … but now you can call Cyril Julian a degreed oenologist – and a guy with the enviable chance to live out two of his dream […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Post-week seven
Apologies for the tardiness of this column, dear readers, but the Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings are just as fun and informative on Sundays as they are on Saturdays! With four teams through into the Top 16 round and several more on the bubble, who’s cruising and who’s losing? BiE says the two dozen squads […]
Basketball Dreaming: Will Taiwan Phenomenon continue?
Now something of a personal story, if you’ll allow BiE. One of the great things about working a blog such as BallinEurope – after getting proper press seating for stuff like Euroleague Final Four and FIBA World Championships, of course – are the people you meet as a journalist. BiE’s not talking about hobnobbing with […]
#1 Euroleague Play of All-Time? Come on! (Pargo was mighty sweet on that jam, though)
A new leader in hyperbole may have emerged in the wake of Jeremy Pargo’s play for Maccabi Tel Aviv last night in the 71-68 squeaker over Žalgiris Kaunas. Pargo was just 4-of-9 in overall shooting for Maccabi, but it was the former ’Zag’s half-closing jam that captured the fancy of YouTube poster “NCAAchannel” enough to […]
Euroleague week six highlights and clips
Here you go, folks: The official Top 10 playlist for week six of the Euroleague regular season, starring Romain Sato, Bo McCalebb, Andre Riddick, Omar Cook, Cemal Nalga, Dimitris Diamantidis, Travis Watson, Chuck Eidson, Mirza Teletovic, Vule Avdalovic, and Luc-Arthur Vebobe. In separate YouTube action, check out highlights from the big league’s chosen game of […]
Team anthems: Brose Baskets metal sound, Valencia's new wave tenor
BiE’s said it before and BiE’ll say it again: American sports fans are really missing out with the whole fan anthem thing… Over on Facebook, the Euroleague official page has gifted its listeners with a pair of fight songs for the squads. Musical homages to Brose Baskets Bamberg and Valencia – believe it or not, […]
Fenerbahçe Ülker, 74-67: Beşiktaş, Iverson lose again with fourth-quarter stall
Allen Iverson remains oh-for-Europe after his first TBL game with Beşiktaş Cola Turka, a 74-67 loss to Euroleague squad Fenerbahçe Ülker. More distressing for Beşiktaş was another disappointing fourth quarter: The Eagles entered the last stanza tied at 53, only to be outplayed and outscored by Fenerbahçe, 21-14 over the final 10 minutes. In general, […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Regular-season halftime
BiE still can’t claim to totally understand what’s going on in Euroleague basketball in 2010-11 (Real Madrid lost by how many? To *who*?) but at least some of the cream is rising to the top. This latest edition of the official BallinEurope power rankings should probably wait ‘til after some key games over the weekend […]