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Fearless predictions: 2010 FIBA World Championship, day two
Whither Spain? In yet another example of “that’s why they play ‘em on paper,” the mighty Spaniards went down thanks to a French attack led by Nicolas Batum (14 points on 4-of-9 shooting, two rebounds, two blocks and one awesome jam), Andrew Albicy (!) and Mickael Gelabale (!!!) and brutal fourth-quarter shooting “highlighted” by three […]
Love Cyprus Tournament: Greece tramples Russia, Croatia survives Germany
From the four-team Love Cyprus Basketball Tournament, Team Greece has sent a loud and clear message to the international hoops world: Fear us. Team Hellas utterly torched a seemingly competitive Russia in a 101-63 laugher last night as one heck of an announcement to the 2010 FIBA World Championship field. Greek national sport media praised […]
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” […]
2010 FIBA World Championship odds: Looking for a dark horse {advertorial}
So call BallinEurope kooky: While everyone else with an eye on basketball – even European basketball, for Arvydas Sabonis’ sake – is concentrating on the NBA free-agent market, BiE is all attention on the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Men tipping off in Turkey in August. Naturally, bookmakers too are into it and the early […]
It’s David Blatt for Maccabi Tel Aviv
Forget about American players making good in Europe: David Blatt is simply one of the top head coaches on The Continent, and the Team Russia miracle worker has just added another gold star to his resume in “coming home” to Maccabi Tel Aviv on a three-year contract. Blatt has some huge shoes to fill in […]
Gershon out in Tel Aviv, Sakalauskas in in Kaunas
A couple of news bites this morning on some high-profile coach firings and hirings in European basketball. In Tel Aviv, Pini Gershon is out as head coach and heavy rumor-mongering has Maccabi picking up current Team Russia/former Aris Thessaloniki head coach David Blatt as a replacement. After two telephone meetings with club management, Maccabi officials […]
After Eurobasket, the future: Part Two
In part two of Ball in Europe’s look at Europe’s top teams following Eurobasket 2009, Francesco Cappelletti contributes his analysis of present and future for those nations who did not finish in Eurobasket’s top four. Part one, featuring looks at Spain, Serbia, Greece, and Slovenia, may be found by clicking here. FRANCE Absences: Mickael Pietrus, […]
France over Spain, damn right! (or, Eurobasket 2009 fearless predictions for day 11)
With all due respect to Turkey and Slovenia, two teams which have often gotten the short of the stick in the BiE fearless prediction series in Eurobasket 2009, what fun is making picks if you don’t mix in some upsets? And taking France to win the tournament right now is quite the stretch, for two […]
Eurobasket 2009, day 2: Opening Day wraps, fearless predictions
Whoa, nice start to Eurobasket 2009, eh? In one game, the complexion of the tournament has changed delightfully; in general, the gap from best-to-worst suddenly appears to be tiny. A nice pair of upsets and the general pluckiness of the underdogs – with the notable exception of FYR Macedonia, who was unfortunately hopelessly outclassed by […]
Team Russia disarmed of AK-47 for EuroBasket 2009
Team Russia’s road to defending its EuroBasket title just got a whole lot longer; yesterday Andrei Kirilenko – so key to the Russian championship in 2007 – comfirmed that he would not be participating in the 2009 tournament. Kirilenko’s no show couples another massive absence for EuroBasket, namely point guard J.R. Holden of CSKA Moscow, […]
After the Olympics: What's the future of Russia?
Russia, the surprising Eurobasket winner of 2007 (yes, we can now say that it was a surprise) comes from a disappointing performance during the Beijing Olympics. An official 9th place was far below the expectations for a country with one of the strongest leagues in Europe.
Marc Salyers to Ankara or Moscow?
The winner of the 2007-08 Alphonso Ford Trophy given to the top Euroleague scorer, Marc Salyers currently of Chorale de Roanne, gave some indications about his future to our friends at basketsession after the loss in the French Finals this Sunday.