Olympiacos 295
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Post-week seven
Apologies for the tardiness of this column, dear readers, but the Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings are just as fun and informative on Sundays as they are on Saturdays! With four teams through into the Top 16 round and several more on the bubble, who’s cruising and who’s losing? BiE says the two dozen squads […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Regular-season halftime
BiE still can’t claim to totally understand what’s going on in Euroleague basketball in 2010-11 (Real Madrid lost by how many? To *who*?) but at least some of the cream is rising to the top. This latest edition of the official BallinEurope power rankings should probably wait ‘til after some key games over the weekend […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Week Three
As we head into week three of EL play, things haven’t quite normalized to preseason expectations, but BallinEurope’s Official Euroleague Power Rankings are looking a tad more normal. Well, except CSKA Moscow’s placement, that is. Rankings are based on current Euroleague record, plus play in other leagues and intangibles (like, for instance, this writer’s preconceived […]
Euroleague week three talking points (part I)
Seven Euroleague games go off tonight as the season rounds into form a bit. The marquee match tonight has got to be the Khimki-Baskonia showdown to establish early supremacy in that tough Group A; Olympiacos-Unicaja will surely be worth the viewing as well, although the way the Reds have dominated on their home floor lately […]
The Frank Euroleague roundup, week two
Francesco Cappelletti’s regular column with BallinEurope is back as our man in Italy takes a look at the after-effects of Euroleague week two action. This time out, Francesco sees European basketball history returning to the old days on the Continent while Balkan squads fight economic problems but dispatch Western European teams anyway. And early on, […]
El Meridiano shocks Real Madrid, 78-67: Reason for panic?
It may be slightly foolish-bordering-on-irresponsible to lament the woes of a traditional powerhouse that’s currently 5-2 overall and (at least for a few more hours) leads the ACB table, but hey. What’s up with Real Madrid? Yesterday saw Ettore Messina’s 4-0 Madrid visit 0-4 El Meridiano Alicante, perhaps too expectantly thinking “win.” Knee-jerk reactions from […]
The Eurocentric 2010-11 NBA Preview (or How the Hoops World revolves around Europe)
With the 2010-11 NBA season tipping off tonight, BallinEurope marks the occasion in the best way possible: By overrating the league’s Continental players and making a few offhand Fearless Predictions™ in the guise of a preview column. Brief notes and snarky remarks on all 25 NBA teams follow. (Yes, BiE said “all 25.” Since the […]
Foreign players, strikebreakers take floor in Greece in “parody” of basketball
Those who think an NBA lockout in 2010-11 could be crazy should check out the situation in Greek pro basketball right now. After seeing the first week of action cancelled due to a player strike called by Greece’s player union PSAK, EΣAKE got underway last night as some of the bigger *teams* broke picket lines […]
Frank answers to four burning Euroleague questions
He’s back! Emerging out of hiding (or perhaps digging himself out of work with youth squads plus Italian-language sports media) is BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Francesco Cappelletti. As the season progresses, Cappelletti will be opining as to what really went down in a week’s worth of Euroleague matches. Today, four key themes that will be […]
Sixty-eight Fearless Predictions™ for 2010-11 Euroleague season
With the EL tipoff game tonight, BallinEurope is feeling devotion … not to mention a rush of Fearless Predictions™ coming on. How crazy can BiE get? You be the judge; here are 68 prognostications on all things Euroleague which you may [laugh uproariously about] ponder. Enjoy the season, everyone! (And sign up for the BallinEurope […]
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 […]
Allen Iverson on Besiktas “would be a great success”
From the What A Difference A Year Makes Department, word is spreading that a European team is courting the still-unemployed Allen Iverson – except with a significant comedown in both prestige and pay from last year’s ballyhooed offer from Olympiacos. The suitor this year would be Beşiktaş Cola Turka, a Eurocup contender, at a rate […]