Anderson Varejao 15
Who can stop Team USA?
This one goes out by request to BallinEurope’s Lithuanian agent Y. … with Team USA coming together to play the Dominican Republic today – with or without Chris Paul – BiE tries to answer the question “Who [if anyone] can beat Team USA?” Good one. A few gauntlets have been thrown by the Americans already, […]
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 […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Final preseason edition
The 2010-11 Euroleague season tips off tomorrow? Right, then. Presenting the last preseason – and thus last totally subjective, because we’ll be able to base these things on, you know, wins and losses beginning next week – BallinEurope Official Euroleague Power Rankings™. (Plus lots of video clips.) Enjoy! 1. (↔) FC Barcelona – Yeah, as […]
Greece vs. Russia: He who wins shall lose?
“Sometimes when you win, you really lose. And sometimes when you lose, you really win. And sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic globule, from which one extracts what one needs.” – Gloria Clemente, White Men […]
Fearless predictions: 2010 FIBA World Championship, day four
Sorry folks, a bit short on time today, but after a perfect 6-0 showing in the official BallinEurope 2010 FIBA World Championship Fearless Predictions™, how could BiE leave you hanging? With two excellent games going down yesterday (Sheesh, who knew a team that gave up 75 points to Jordan could defend?) in the Slovenia-Croatia sharpshooting […]
Fearless predictions: 2010 FIBA World Championship, day three
Who had Germany to win in a nail-biter over Serbia in the 2010 FIBA World Championship game last night? That’s right: BallinEurope, baby! As Sidney Deane once said, “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m the greatest.” (Of course, we’ll not be discussing the performance of Team France, who followed up the stunning win over […]
BallinEurope’s 2010 FIBA World Championship power rankings 4.1
Whoa … anyone who thinks these “friendly” games in the runup to the 2010 FIBA World Championship don’t matter to the teams involved certainly wasn’t paying attention the literal battle that ensued during last night’s final game of the Acropolis Basketball Tournament between Greece and Serbia. With the Acropolis tourney now in the books and […]
BallinEurope’s 2010 FIBA World Championship power rankings 4.0
BiE was waiting for a result from last night’s Brazil-Argentina game in Spain before preparing this week’s edition of the official BallinEurope 2010 FIBA World Championship Power Rankings. Now that those numbers are in, the long-awaited list may be unveiled; who’s hot and who’s not? In BiE’s opinion, readings off the lay lines of the […]
Sunday roundup: Slovenia stunned; France smoked by Canada; USA, Serbia, Lebanon roll
With three key warmups for the 2010 FIBA World Championship tipping off tonight, BallinEurope takes quick stock of some of the games played in the last few days and relevant news on the Team Brazil roster and Hellene injuries – links and video abound, too. Slovenia shocked by New Zealand… No matter what Team New […]
Power rankings (already updated): 2010 FIBA World Championship
See, BiE secretly knew this would happen … you break down, make a few fearless predictions online and bam! The inconvenient fact of a loss – two losses in fact, one particularly egregious – goes down and you suddenly have to rework the whole damn post on 2010 FIBA World Championship power rankings. In the […]
Power ratings: 2010 FIBA World Championship
August is here and it’s full speed ahead for the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey later this month. In coming weeks, we’ll be seeing the national teams competing in the tournament playing warmup games all over the planet – indeed, some have already begun play. With the last few big names having declared “yea” […]
Team USA still favored in 2010 FIBA World Championship, but should they be?
Just a quick note (and link) for fans of the 2010 FIBA World Championship: Be sure to check out the excellent and extensive thoughts on Team USA by M. Haubs over at ESPN TrueHoop Network blog The Painted Area. In “Spain, Not Team USA, Should Be Considered Favorites To Win 2010 FIBA Worlds,” Haubs makes […]