Manresa 11
Mario Saint-Supery: A Sleeper Pick in the NBA Draft?
He’s not exactly climbing NBA draft boards but Mario Saint-Supery is getting real minutes for a contender in Europe. Emmet Ryan got a closer look at the young Spaniard on Tuesday night, in a loss for his Manresa side to Petkimspor in the Basketball Champions League. This sounds dreadfully obvious but it’s much easier to […]
Podcast: Interview with Spurs draftee Adam Hanga leads Hungarian-flavored show
Episode #19 of the BallinEurope/ heinnews co-hosted “Taking the Charge” podcast is now online. Bearing a nice Hungarian accent, our centerpiece interview this week will be of great interest to Spanish basketball fans, San Antonio Spurs nation and NBA prospect-watchers, as Team Hungary’s Adam Hanga joins David Hein and yours truly for a solid 20 […]
British Basketball announces 21-man national team roster, dubbed “strongest Team Britain ever”
Head coach Chris Finch and the British Basketball Federation today released a preliminary roster of 21 players to compete for spots on the host team’s 2012 Olympic team. Given the fairly short modern history of FIBA-level basketball on the ‘Isles, the claim from the federation that this is the “strongest-ever preliminary GB men’s squad” isn’t […]
Serge Ibaka “wants to play at least a month or two” in Spain
Already the rare naturalized player on Team Spain, Serge Ibaka would reportedly like to extend his commitment to his adopted home country. Hoops Hype today is posting quotes from an unnamed source vis-à-vis the possibility of the Oklahoma City Thunderer joining an ACB team while the NBA lockout drags on. “He wants to play at […]
ACB preseason: Unicaja Malaga, Lucentum Alicante, Caja Laboral take cups; Gran Canaria bows out in Germany
The 2011-12 ACB season may not have tipped off yet, but the Spanish league’s teams were nevertheless busy in preseason games this weekend. Below, BallinEurope briefly rounds up the action. • A bunch of regional tournaments went down this weekend in Spain, including the Lliga Catalana semifinials. In this tourney yesterday, reigning Lliga and ACB […]
Ibaka: “It would be nice” to play in Spain during NBA lockout
Add Serge Ibaka to the list of NBA players willing to suit up for a European team in 2010-11 in the wake of the lockout situation. Ibaka played for Manresa of the Spanish national league for the 2008-09 season, and the official ACB website has posted excerpts from an interview the Oklahoma City Thunderer gave […]
Déjà vu in Ukraine? Proposed role models for Fratello’s new team
When Mike Fratello arrives to head up his national team coaching gig in Ukraine, he won’t see too many familiar faces beyond Sasha Volkov. Volkov played for the Czar’s Atlanta Hawks for a couple seasons way back when; unfortunately, Volkov hasn’t actually played ball at any level since year 2000. Coupled with the fact that […]
ACB race tightens: Madrid, Baskonia escape; Unicaja slips further on table
With 19 of its 34 weeks nearly complete, the ACB race is tightening quickly, as evidenced by three games of last night which were decided by a combined four points. (This just in: Real Madrid 62, Assignia Manresa 61, so surely BiE’ll have clips from that soon as well.) You want highlights? BallinEurope’s got your […]
Give him a Guinness: Streetballer Filipy shatters record in Barcelona
Saturday night action in the ACB produced three adrenaline-pumping roof-raising finishes (BallinEurope will post video clips momentarily) but the only Guinness record-shattering performance took place before hundreds in Barcelona, where no game was played. Streetballer Rubén Alcaraz, a.k.a. “Filipy”, managed to keep a basketball spinning on a single fingertip (okay, thumb tip, to be specific) […]
¡Triples, triples, triples! Checking out the ACB’s new three-point line
With the ACB converting its courts to that with the new FIBA standard three-pointer and key, most fans will be closely watching the effects on the Spanish league’s many sharpshooters. And while one week’s worth of games is an awfully small sample size, the early numbers show that lovers of barnburners have nothing to worry […]
Tuesday transactions: Unicaja signs Rubio (no, not that one); Boumtje-Boumtje stays with EWE EWE
Two free-agent signings and one contract extension were announced by Euroleague officials on Tuesday, with Guillem Rubio forsaking Manresa for Unicaja while EWE Baskets Oldenburg signed Acha Njei, most recently of Bundesliga second division team Bremen Roosters; Oldenburg also extended the contract for one of the great names in all of basketball, Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje.