National Leagues 372
FC Barcelona tops Real Madrid, 73-69, to take Spanish title; MVP Lorbek, Mickeal, Vazquez lead way
Congratulations this morning go out to FC Barcelona, winners of the fifth and final game in the Liga Endesa championship, 73-69, over Real Madrid. In yet another cliffhanger, Los Blancos “died with their boots on” as the official league writeup would have it, while the Blaugrana were led by Pete Mickeal (17 points, nine rebounds, […]
Besiktas 80, Anadolu Efes 76: The BallinEurope review of a triple-crown season
Congratulations go out from BallinEurope to Beşiktaş Milangaz, who capped a fascinating whirlwind run last night with an 80-76 victory over Anadolu Efes in game six of the TBL championship series. The Black Eagles may add the trophy to their Turkish Cup and FIBA Eurochallenge title in 2011-12, certainly the most successful – and among […]
List of European champions, 2011-12: Future nearly upon us edition
While Spain, Turkey, France, Germany, Italy and Serbia have yet to crown this season’s basketball champions, most other domestic leagues have, thus allowing us to visualize the makeups of the 2012-13 Euroleague, Adriatic League and (kinda sorta) Eurocup. Newly welcome champions to the BallinEurope include those from Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina (with some disheartening financial […]
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 […]
How much will the CSKA Moscow budget be? (Plus, official statement from club)
For a brief while, the collective imagination of Twitter’s European basketball region was captured by rumors of the CSKA Moscow budget for 2012-13. Naturally, it’s no news when the Big Red Machine spends large sums wheeling and dealing in the off-season, but the rumored figures this year are pretty damn mind-boggling. CSKA has already been […]
Partizan 92, Red Star Belgrade 83: Milosavljevic stars with 18 points, dagger dunk
In Serbia, Partizan Belgrade seeks to defend its national title for the 11th straight year; in topping Crvena Zvezda/Red Star Belgrade, 92-83, last night, they’ve taken the first step. Dragan Milosavljevic was the stud for Partizan with 18 points, six rebounds and four assists – plus one monster dunk late that helped seal the W […]
Cibona Zagreb retakes Croatian title over Cedevita, 77-64
Congratulations go out from BallinEurope to Cibona Zagreb, which won a closeout game four 77-64 over Cedevita Zagreb in the HKS championship series for the Croatian national title. Reported Eurobasket.com, “Cibona led from the first minutes and controlled entire game increasing their lead in each quarter. They made 16-of-21 free shots (76.2 percent) during the […]
Olympiacos wins! Olympiacos wins! Olympiacos wins! (a.k.a. *The* European basketball story of 2011-12)
Let’s put this into perspective. The last time Olympiacos took the Greek national title, they were led by David Rivers and Dragan Tarlać. Vassilis Spanoulis was 15 years old and not near professional club play. Dejan Bodiroga was in the middle of his career and Mirsad Turkcan had just turned 21. Across the pond, Lebron […]
The Euroleague’s top 33 (or who will compete in the 2012-13 EL)
This just in. The Euroleague has announced prospective licensing for the 2012-13 season; a few surprises in here, at least as far as BallinEurope is concerned… A-license teams include:
Euroleague 2012-13: An attempt to deduce the composition (plus Official Fearless Prediction™)
Yesterday, the basketball-centered bit of the Twitter universe was centered in two real-life locales: New York City and Barcelona. Topics in play were the falling of ping-pong balls in New York City and Euroleague’s incipient decision on the construction of Euroleague 2012-13. Hopefully, BallinEurope will get something together on the former later, but for now, […]
Who needs the Adriatic League?
With the recent announcement that the 2011-12 champions won’t in fact be seeking a second go-around in the Adriatic League and hard economic realities facing many Serbian and Croatian clubs, BallinEurope contributor Marko Savkovic today asks the hard question about one of Europe’s most prestigious associations. Something is always up in the Adriatic League. After […]
List of European champions, 2011-12: End of May update edition
Basketball grinds on in Europe’s three dozen or so domestic leagues and so BallinEurope today updates the “List of European Champions” page. Since last posting, new champs have been crowned in Israel (guess who), Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Holland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Romania. Things are progressing meanwhile in Europe’s larger leagues including Spain, Greece, […]