Team Greece 87
Europe's top national teams of the 2000s
After taking a look at the European players of the decade and top professional teams of the decade, BallinEurope today turns attention to the national level. Which teams from the 2000s will we still recall fondly in years to come? Below are listed eight key national squads from the passing ten-year span, the unforgettable basketball […]
So who replaces Gintaras Krapikas at Zalgiris?
Due in part to the 89-55 throttling at the hands of FC Barcelona this week and in great part to Zalgiris Kaunas’ poor 1-7 showing in Euroleague play in 2009, Gintaras Krapikas stepped down as head coach, effective immediately. And so ends Krapikas’ third stint with the team in various capacities as player and coach. […]
The BallinEurope All-Decade All-European Team
While technically this decade doesn’t end until 2010, with millions of sports websites and blogs proclaiming December 31 the end of the 2000s, who is BallinEurope to be pedantic? (Especially when there’s a good excuse to make an all-time team roster.) Therefore, in the spirit of a new era, BallinEurope seeks to comprise Europe’s All-Decade […]
FIBA 2010 Worlds: Dates to mark on the calendar
Is it too early to start planning your basketball viewing for late August? Nah! And after looking over the 2010 FIBA World Championship schedule released yesterday, i’m already feeling anticipation for a bunch of matches in this year’s Europe-heavy tournament. The official BallinEurope-recommended dates and games Europe needs to mark on its collective calendar include: […]
Euroleague team preview: Montepaschi Siena
Can Montepaschi still improve? That’s the question many fans and even Euroleague 2007-2008 Executive of the Year winner Ferdinando Minucci put to the team. It’s easy to talk about windows of opportunity, but never has it been so appropriate, as Montepaschi looks at perhaps its final opportunity to get to the top of Euroleague. In […]
The Spanish league explained: Part one
The quality of a national league here in Europe is not given by the value of top teams – every league has a number of top teams – but is more appropriately determined by how good the medium-to-low range clubs are. Spain’s are good like no others are: This is why ACB is today the […]
After Eurobasket, the future: Part one
Ball in Europe contributor Francesco Cappelletti wraps Eurobasket 2009 with little surprise and a long view on the future of Europe’s premiere national basketball programs. Today, analysis on the tournament’s top four finishers. It was simply a result that we could take for granted: Spain at the top of Europe, with silver medalist Serbia beaten […]
Eurobasket 2009, lucky day 13
This tournament just keeps getting better and better. Whether you dig the comeback or prefer a back-and-forth tug of war, Eurobasket 2009 had basketball lovers all smiles yesterday with a pair of fantastic contests truly reflecting the excellence of this field. And today there’s *four* more games? Nice. Jumping right in, then…
Hack-an-Asik and other fearless predictions for Eurobasket 2009, day 10
How do you explain “they should swallow their whistles” to someone who knows nothing about sports? (And I mean really nothing; we’re talking live-six-years-in-Chicago-during-the-Jordan-Era-and-still-not-know-the-difference-between-Bulls-and-Bears nothing.) That was my situation during large portions of the second and third quarters of the France-Greece game last night as to the wife’s chagrin I yelled at the TV. While […]
Normalcy returns to Eurobasket 2009 (?); plus not-so-fearless predictions
All right, so normalcy has apparently returned to normal in Eurobasket 2009, with favorites going three-for-three and BallinEurope’s ratio of correct-to-incorrect fearless predictions brought down to a more realistic level. As It Should Be Then: Turkey rolled on but got a good overtime fight from Serbia (they’ll both be in final eight), while Poland’s dream […]
Fearless predictions for Eurobasket 2009 day seven
After the dust settled from a scintillating trio of Eurobasket 2009 games played yesterday, two questions remained: 1) Should we now pencil Turkey in for the finals or merely the final four? And 2) which is the bigger train wreck right now, Spain or Lithuania? Today’s slate of games looks to be a fairly predictable […]
Fearless predictions for Eurobasket 2009 day five
Children’s flus and other duties prevent a longer entry today, but it wouldn’t be Eurobasket 2009 without BallinEurope’s fearless predictions. Tonight’s slate of games includes: Russia v. Croatia. Team Russia has done an admirable job with limited resources, while any mojo Croatia may have worked up in summer friendlies has disappeared in two consecutive fairly […]