EuroLeague 106
BallinEurope's most popular stories of 2012
BiE likes to write up this particular roundup at year’s end for a couple of reasons: Firstly as a thank you to the readers who check out BallinEurope however frequently; like they say in sports, this website wouldn’t exist without the audience. Secondly, a look back at which BallinEurope stories drew the most attention provides […]
2012: The year in Euro-centric basketball highlight clips
What say we close out 2012 with a whole bunch of highlight clips? BiE knew you’d be willing. Tomorrow, a list of the most popular BallinEurope stories of the calendar year will be running, but today comes an attempt to encapsulate the past 365 days in European hoops, YouTube style. From Ibaka’s blocks to the […]
Euroleague Power Rankings: Top 16 Tip-Off Edition
Mere hours remain before the next level of Euroleague basketball – the expanded Top 16 round – tips off. Thus, BallinEurope has just enough to get in a round of Power Rankings for the big league. This time around, the utter subjective rankings of how the surviving sixteen teams *are currently trending* take into account […]
Joan Plaza: “I can’t imagine” leaving long-term Zalgiris project
In an extensive 15-minute interview, Žalgiris Kaunas head coach Joan Plaza manages to pack in quite enough to make Greens fans highly optimistic about the future. While not commenting on his boss, Žalgiris’ notoriously wacky owner Vladimir Romanov, the Spanish mastermind does fearlessly take on heavy questions of race and culture. Plaza is admirably learning […]
BallinEurope’s Euroleague Regular Season All-Star Team
As The Continent has bid adieu to eight teams’ Euroleague bids for 2012-13, BallinEurope looks back briefly to take a brief look back at the regular season’s best – not to mention spindly some quality time outside the mall and in front of the YouTube. The BallinEurope 2012-13 Euroleague Regular Season All-Star Team looks as […]
Poll: Which is the best European team going into 2013?
Right. So. Especially after this – – and with the calendar page about to be flipped into 2013, BallinEurope’s question is: Which is the best basketball team in Europe right now? Straight by the qualification system, the top four teams in Euroleague round one were Real Madrid, Maccabi Tel Aviv, FC Barcelona and Žalgiris Kaunas […]
Teodosic watch: Milos clutch in win over FC Barcelona; CSKA Moscow displays awesome arsenal
Going into last night’s Euroleague-closing match against FC Barcelona, Ettore Messina and CSKA Moscow seemed to have deduced the solution to Milos Teodosic’s fourth-quarter woes dating back to the 2012 Final Four tournament: Simply blow out opponents so that no clutch play is required. In hindsight, this game mathematically meant little: Thanks to the week […]
Euroleague Power Rankings: Week 10 Win-or-Die Edition
Two more nights of play and the Euroleague closes down play for calendar year 2012. With the majority of games on the slate still relevant, even the advancing squads will be playing for positioning in the next draw. And how are the 24 teams trending? BallinEurope takes a pretty much completely subjective look at who’s […]
Monday Hangover: Žalgiris Kaunas impressive again; Saric’s 2012-13 debut; Goldsberry’s Bizarro Buzzer-Beater of the Week
Damn, BallinEurope watched a lotta sports this past 72 years: Euroleague games, highlights, quarters here and there, a VTB United game, three hours of late-Sunday night NFL football, two sports-related films for upcoming Taking The Charge podcasts … life is ball games … and especially basketball, but unfortunately BiE watches almost nothing live and compresses […]
Here come the Men in Red and Blue!
Dear CSKA Moscow Studios, BiE was happy to hear that the exciting new cinematic blockbuster from your studios has now entered the production phase. The choices for leads in the “Men in Red and Blue” (or “MiRB” – nice bit of online-centric marketing consciousness shown there, might BiE say) motion picture are intriguing, indeed. Sonny […]
Euroleague Power Rankings: Penultimate Regular-Season Game Edition
BallinEurope hasn’t done this lately, so on the eve of the 2012-13 Euroleague season’s penultimate round of regular-season play, the BiE EL Power Rankings run below. Quick recap of the rules: The rankings are based on the way current teams are *trending* and not necessarily overall quality. Recent play in Euroleague games is the most […]
On Hezonja, Todorovic plus a couple of Swedes: FC Barcelona’s future as bright as the present?
As though FC Barcelona’s red-hot play – they’re now at 14-4 overall after an 0-2 start in Spain – weren’t enough to keep European basketball devotees watching, here are two more reasons for you: Mario Hezonja and Marko Todorović. At just 17 years old and despite missing the entire 2011-12 regular season, Hezonja finally got […]