Virtus Bologna 47
Upcoming events: Players/coaches clinics in Groningen; youth tournament in Cleveland
BallinEurope recently received a pair of emails promoting events begging for a little attention, so call this your weekend BiE Public Service Announcements. (For the record, none of the following events or organizers are sponsors of BallinEurope.com. Just so you know.) First up, in conjunction with its annual youth basketball competition in Groningen and FIBA, […]
Rumor: Ginobili and Splitter to be united … in Spain?
Okay, San Antonio Spurs, BallinEurope has good news and bad news for you, and the good news ain’t too good, so you’d better be sitting. As it turns out, the much-awaited Tiago Splitter may in fact be playing on the same team as Manu Ginobili for the 2010-11 season. The bad news is that the […]
State of the nations: European basketball organizations today
While not interested in passing definitive judgment, we think it would be useful and fair to take a look at the European basketball panorama. There will be no ratings or rankings here, just a snapshot of what the most important ballin’ countries offer us. Ten years into the third millennium, it’s common to hear repeated […]
Best of the (basketball) net: Read all about it edition
Another Sunday, another of BallinEurope’s “Best of the (Basketball) Net” column. Lots of interesting stuff hit the interwebs this week, with tons of material for you to read – and that increases by literal volumes should you take our first item to heart… • Could this be the basketball-related post of all-time or just in […]
Travis Best lands with Martos Napoli
Whoa, 90s flashback! On Friday, Serie A club Martos Napoli announced the signing of 37-year-old Travis Best, perhaps best known for his play with Larry Bird’s Indiana Pacers, the NBA championship-contending team of 1999-2000. Best was a first-round draft choice of the Pacers in 1995. The point guard stuck with Indiana until 2002, when he […]
The Italian League explained: Part one
Some consider Serie A to be the second best European league behind (and I mean, kilometers behind) only the ACB, others consider the league’s unstoppable decreasing level which began at the beginning of new millennium. Anyway, between clubs which fail year by year, rules about US and EU players never staying consistent for more than […]
Who’s next? Three national teams to watch for
As we await the two-game showdown between France and Belgium for the final spot in the FIBA Eurobasket 2009 tournament and Eurobasket Division B pool play enters the homestretch, Ball in Europe takes a speculative look at three national programs we might be hearing a lot more about in 2010 and beyond. Finland. When Finland […]
Attendance figures for European competitions (FIBA EuroChallenge)
As the European competitions come to an end, BallinEurope goes over the various leagues to see which teams attracted the most fans into their arenas. We begin with the FIBA EuroChallenge, the third level of European competition.
The Italian league explained
Though this ranking will probably be jumbled in eight months, let’s take a look at the teams in the Italian league. A preliminary remark: this season will see one of the most balanced championships of the past five years, with almost every team improving its situation and not merely to beat the invincible Montepaschi. Serie […]
Domestic league preview: Italy
Virtus Bologna’s agreement with Earl Boykins is only the latest sign: It is now clear that the Italian League is ready to return to its past and glorious times of the 1990s when Bologna was called “Basket City” and the whole movement was at the top in Europe. Serie A is on the rise again, […]
ACB remains leader in attendance
UPDATE (16/6/2008): BallinEurope checked the attendance figures of the different European leagues and has compiled some stats based on the averages. We didn’t see any big surprises, as Spanish ACB still tops the list.