Olympic Qualifiers 16
Twenty years ago today: The Road to Barcelona
All right, so it wasn’t exactly twenty years ago today per se, but the current Argentina-Spain-US tournament playing these days brought to mind some of the warmup games in 1992 – at that time, all the Dream Teams kept us enthralled as we imagined the upcoming clashes in Barcelona. So today another chapter in BallinEurope’s […]
Highlights: 90 seconds from the Olympic qualifiers
Here’s a quickie for you, then: Approximately 90 seconds’ worth of official highlight clip from the 2012 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament, starring Bo McCalebb, Vassilis Spanoulis, Ike Diogu and a whole bunch of others…
Vlado Ilievski: FIBA partly to blame for FYR Macedonia defeat
How do you say “sour grapes” in Macedonian? In looking for reasons for his side’s loss to Team Dominican Republic in Olympic qualifiers, Vlado Ilievski sounded off on FIBA organization itself. “Teams from South America had more time for preparation,” Ilievski is quoted in FYR Macedonia-based Dnevnik. “They played in continental championships and were [in […]
God, please give us victories!
In advancing to the 2012 Olympic Games, Team Lithuania has written itself into the record books. BallinEurope’s Lithuanian agent Y. wants you to understand just how important this achievement is to the people of that basketball-adoring country… “God, please give us victories. Some people don’t understand: This is all we have left. Basketball is the […]
Upset in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament today: What are the chances?
Right, so BallinEurope has already publicly logged Official Fearless Predictions™ for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament knockout stage in bracket format. Europe’s four representatives – group winners all – take on some decent African and North American competition, but nevertheless the bookies like an all-Europe final four in Venezuela. Indeed, there’s a high probability that […]
Fearless Predictions™: BallinEurope's Olympic Qualifiers bracket
More on today’s FIBA Olympic Qualifying Round games will be posted momentarily, but in the meantime, the following is BallinEurope’s bracket for the tournament – and let’s call the picks Official BiE Fearless Predictions™. Yeah, BiE’s got all four European sides getting through…
Bo shakes and bakes like Hakeem the Dream
The play of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament thus far? Well, call BallinEurope biased, but check out Bo McCalebb’s crazy moves in utterly flummoxing New Zealand big man Rob Loe in FYR Macedonia’s 84-62 win over the Tall Blacks. And since FIBA is comparing Bo’s moves to those of Hakeem Olajuwon’s “Dream Shake,” a video of […]
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 […]
2012 Olympic Qualifying Tournament Preview: FYR Macedonia
The 2012 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Men tips off in Venezuela on Monday. Until then, BallinEurope takes a look at the four European squads competing in turn. Today, an assessment of those Eurobasket 2011 darlings, FYR Macedonia. Roster: Pero Antic (Olympiacos); Gjorgi Chekovski, Todor Gechevski (MZT Skopje); Vlado Ilievski (Lokomotiv Kuban); Aleksandar Kostoski […]
Lithuania “struggles” in 77-68 loss to Russia: Kaun nets 21; Valanciunas gets 12, eight boards
For lack of YouTube clips and FIBA posts, BallinEurope directs you to Lithuania Basketball for a brief writeup on the Russia-Lietuva friendly in Houston last night. The general gist: Despite taking a 37-35 lead into halftime, Team Lithuania struggled enough in the third quarter to take a 77-68 loss. In fact, “struggle” appears to be […]
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 […]
Kemzura releases extended Team Lithuania roster: No to Lavrinovic brothers, yes to Kleiza
National head coach Kestutis Kemzura has released his list of 18 candidates who could be suiting up for Team Lithuania in the 2012 Olympic qualifiers and beyond. On paper at least, the selection looks pretty good – particularly compared to the Eurobasket 2011 version of the team which included a single true no. 3 after […]