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FIBA EuroChallenge: Mensah-Bonsu, Erceg, Arroyo lead Beşiktaş to 91-86 win, championship title
Congratulations go out from BallinEurope to Beşiktaş Milangaz, winners of the 2011-12 FIBA EuroChallenge title with a 91-86 victory over Elan Chalon last night. The win represents not only advancement to Eurocup play for 2012-13, but also Turkey’s second-ever European club championship: An Efes Pilsen side led by Conrad McRae, Petar Naumoski and Ufuk Sarıca […]
Spartak St. Petersburg 82, Triumph Lubertsy 73: Epic display of flopping, personal vendetta or match-fixing conspiracy?
Criticizing the referees is the international pastime for fans of every sport as losses are bemoaned and shortcomings blamed on those unloved (and allegedly) myopic zebras. Nothing new here. Cynicism and conspiracy theorizing are particularly rife in this part of formerly Soviet-influenced Europe, with anything up to and including Eurobasket losses. Again, nothing new here. […]
On the continued rise of The Dragon
A breakout year from Team Slovenia’s Goran Dragic with the Houston Rockets deserves a look – and some embedded YouTube clips. Today, Sam Chadwick takes that look on BallinEurope. Developing in the cool climate of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Goran Dragic’s rise to basketball success was a game of waiting. After a Slovenian league championship in the […]
Explaining BallinEurope's Euroleague MVP ballot (plus the top 25 for 2011-12, highlight clips)
In the interests of complete transparency – hey, somebody in Hungary should aspire to such – BallinEurope today presents the outcome of a heavy Euroleague basketball-watching habit plus several hours of intense thought: Namely, the five names that went onto BiE’s media representative’s ballot for 2011-12 Euroleague MVP. Since there’s no way the chosen quintet […]
Eurocentric play of the night: Robertson block + Ohlbrecht dunk = Fuel for streaking Skyliners
You want your highlight clips? Courtesy David Hein, Germany’s Bundesliga, Fraport Skyliners and good old YouTube, BallinEurope offers one heck of an end-to-end play from the Skyliners’ emphatic 45-point victory over hapless Phoenix Hagen last night. Enjoy! The Fraport Skyliners are streaking towards the playoffs as they have won nine of their last 11 games […]
Highlights from Dennis Rodman’s Easter weekend in Bulgaria
Former Detroit Pistons/Chicago Bulls/Torpan Pojat power forward and Pro Basketball Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman was in Bulgaria this weekend to help that nation’s league celebrate its all-star break and oh yes, he left his mark. Ireland-based The Score reported somewhat hyperbolically that the appearance was part of a full-on comeback to the game by […]
Panathinaikos tops Maccabi Tel Aviv, 86-85 to advance; Greens to take on Red Army, history in Istanbul
The 2011-12 Euroleague Final Four field is now filled, as Panathinaikos’ cliffhanger of an 86-85 win against Maccabi Tel Aviv last night sets up a May date with the monsters of CSKA Moscow in Istanbul. (And now, a slight bit of horn-tooting. Note a few Official BallinEurope Fearless Predictions™ made good, i.e. Dimitris Diamantidis as […]
On the Road to London: Zinedine Zidane, Yannick Noah ♥ Tony Parker
Now available online at YouTube and DailyMotion – not to mention embedded below – is episode three of the short documentary series “On the Road to London” featuring Team France in the runup to the 2012 Olympics. Le troisième épisode is entitled “La Star,” which might perhaps be best translated as “Tony Parker: The Love […]
Hendrix, Maccabi Tel Aviv negotiations “are broken”; FC Barcelona, Real Madrid interested?
Wow, we’re really already talking about the 2012-13 free-agency period? And now that Maccabi is up two games to one on Panathinaikos in their playoff series they’re reading to sever ties with a key component? Apparently, both bylines may be true, as sports talent agency/advisory firm You First Sports announced last night that “Andy Miller, […]
DaShaun Wood goes for 27, Alba Berlin torches Phoenix Hagen, 114-86
While Alba Berlin (22-6) continues to try and claw its way up Germany’s Bundesliga standings at three games behind current top-seed Brose Baskets Bamberg, the team last night got a little relief in the form of a game against relegation-zoners Phoenix Hagen (8-20 and in a three-way tie for 15th place) to put up some […]
Andrew Bynum’s three-point shooting streak ends
Just because everyone’s all a-Twitter about it, here’s Andrew Bynum with – all hyperbole and kidding aside – one of the silliest threes ever taken in the NBA. Bynum is now 1-of-7 on threes in his career, with the sole make a meaningless one coming last Sunday to cap a loss against the Memphis Grizzlies. […]
Lionel Messi got game … sort of
Over in that other sport, FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is hot enough on the international level to have earned the sobriquet “greatest of all-time” from Barca manager Pep Guardiola; hype is high enough that Guardian UK readers are calling Messi better (by far) than the likes of Diego Maradona, Pele, Johan Cryuff, Zinedine Zidane and […]