Team Lithuania 170
2012 Olympic Qualifying Tournament Preview: Greece
Just one more day (or so, CET) until the heartily-named 2012 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Men tips off in Venezuela. BallinEurope continues with previews of the four European qualifiers with an assessment of Greece, a.k.a. Olympiacos and a bunch of other guys. Roster: Vassilis Spanoulis, Georgios Printezis, Kostas Papanikolaou, Kostas Sloukas, Evangelos Mantzaris […]
2012 Olympic Qualifying Tournament Preview: FYR Macedonia
The 2012 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Men tips off in Venezuela on Monday. Until then, BallinEurope takes a look at the four European squads competing in turn. Today, an assessment of those Eurobasket 2011 darlings, FYR Macedonia. Roster: Pero Antic (Olympiacos); Gjorgi Chekovski, Todor Gechevski (MZT Skopje); Vlado Ilievski (Lokomotiv Kuban); Aleksandar Kostoski […]
Lithuania “struggles” in 77-68 loss to Russia: Kaun nets 21; Valanciunas gets 12, eight boards
For lack of YouTube clips and FIBA posts, BallinEurope directs you to Lithuania Basketball for a brief writeup on the Russia-Lietuva friendly in Houston last night. The general gist: Despite taking a 37-35 lead into halftime, Team Lithuania struggled enough in the third quarter to take a 77-68 loss. In fact, “struggle” appears to be […]
Current rosters for 2012 European, USA Olympic teams [Updated]
Last Friday, FIBA released its first “power ladder” (a.k.a. “power rankings”) for 2012 Olympic basketball; BallinEurope therefore thought to post a list of the seven Continental team rosters – plus, as a measuring stick, the pool for Team USA – as they currently stand.
Top 10 plays from PLK playoffs feature lots of Asseco Prokom, Donatas Motiejunas
The PLK season ended on Wednesday in the same fashion as the previous eight seasons: Namely, with Asseco Prokom Gdynia holding Poland’s basketball championship title, as Trefl Spot managed to take the series to seven games but in the end fell 76-68 in the final match. And so the league has released its semi-obligatory “Top […]
Ramunas Siskauskas: The BallinEurope video tribute
On Monday, European basketball great Ramunas Šiškauskas announced his retirement from the game: A story that was noteworthy enough for even North Korean sports fans to be notified. In his official statement, Šiškauskas said that he’d “made my choice in the middle of the season. It was not connected with anything specific – I just […]
On Olympiacos Euroleague championship: From crises emerge heroes
European basketball fans know that history was made with Olympiacos’ stunning victory in the 2012 Euroleague championship. And so BallinEurope contributor, the self-proclaimed hoops history junkie Uygar Karaca looks back with perspective on the title bid, reaching all the back to the Great Depression of 1929 through the collapse of the Soviet Union and into […]
Eclipse watching: All-time records under threat at Euroleague Final Four 2012
For all the history/stat junkies out there – including myself, as BiE readers know – BallinEurope today takes a look at what all-time Euroleague Final Four records might fall this year … and some that seem unbreakable. • Under assault could be the all-time free-throw mark of 56 held by Nikos Galis. Galis set this […]
On the demise of Lithuanian Basketball
BallinEurope is not exactly sure what led our man in Lithuania, the enigmatic Y., to contemplate the fortunes of his country’s national team … but who are we to question a Lietuva hometowner when it comes to basketball? Y. goes back eight years to figure out where things went so terribly wrong and unfortunately finds […]
Team Russia’s first opponent in 2012 Olympic qualifiers: Jetlag (really?)
With months to go before the London Olympic Games, some Russian media sources may already be panicking, based on concerns quoted from Alexey Shved vis-à-vis the FIBA qualifying tournament scheduled for July in Venezuela. The CSKA Moscow guard told Russia-based media service RIA Novosti that “Of course we’ll try. But flying for 15 hours changes […]
And the Oscar (Robertson) Goes To: Basketball Movies in 2011
Meanwhile, over in Hollywoodland … to no cineaste’s surprise, the silent film The Artist was named “Best Motion Picture of the Year” at the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony. While Tinseltown may have had a decent, if not mind-blowing, twelve months of production in 2011 – as evidenced by Woody Allen taking the “Best Original Screenplay” […]
Euroleague Top 16, Week Two, Night One: Six games, 100 facts
Courtesy the Euroleague folks, BallinEurope brings a compendium of facts and figures spanning history and record books regarding tomorrow night’s slate of a half-dozen games – plus lines on the games and highlight clips. Enjoy! CSKA Moscow vs. Anadolu Efes Istanbul • CSKA leads the all-time series between the teams, 8-7. • Nenad Krstic has […]