Team USSR 19
2012 Olympic basketball: Cold War clash to be repeated?
From the newswire this morning comes a bit of nostalgia for those who remember and perhaps a tiny bit of history for those who don’t remember Team USSR of the old Olympic Games … BiE’s telling ya, it’s USA vs. Russia in the finals…
Twenty years ago today: The Barcelona Games
The 1992 Olympic Games, the Games of the XXV Olympiad: The first to be held without mass boycotts and, by many estimation, the greatest Olympics ever in presentation, hosting, and competition. It was the Games of Hungarian swimmer Krisztina Egerszegi, of Belorussian/Unified Team member Vitaly Scherbo in gymnastics, of the Russian men’s swimming team, of […]
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 […]
Twenty Years Ago Today: A European Dream Team for 1992
When basketball fans look back on the 1992 Olympic Games, the top three topics are the awesomeness of the Dream Team, the success of Lithuania playing its first Olympic hoops as an independent nation, and the success of Croatia playing its first Olympic hoops as an independent nation. Fair enough, BiE supposes, but what about […]
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 […]
On Olympiacos Euroleague championship: From crises emerge heroes
European basketball fans know that history was made with Olympiacos’ stunning victory in the 2012 Euroleague championship. And so BallinEurope contributor, the self-proclaimed hoops history junkie Uygar Karaca looks back with perspective on the title bid, reaching all the back to the Great Depression of 1929 through the collapse of the Soviet Union and into […]
Jonas Kazlauskas vs. Dusan Ivkovic: Euroleague history will be made
It’s a trivia question with an expiration date – and that date is tomorrow. To wit: “Which head coach holds the record for longest time between Euroleague titles?” For the next, what, 26 hours or so, the answer is “Alexander Gomelsky.” Most well-known as the Team USSR coach, the Naismith/FIBA Hall of Famer took the […]
Alzhan Zharmukhamedov returns home to enliven Kazakhstan national program
While Alzhan Zharmukhamedov might not quite be a household name in the post-Soviet era and Kazakhstan is hardly a European nation readily associated with top-flight basketball, this nation is hoping that the former Olympic and EuroBasket champion can change all that. The Kazakh Academy of Sports and Tourism yesterday announced that a revamped national basketball […]
Career retrospective: Arvydas Sabonis, Hall of Famer
In honor of the legendary Arvydas Sabonis, the man Scottie Pippen once called “The greatest European basketball player ever to play the game,” entering the Basketball Hall of Fame, BallinEurope this morning reruns its career retrospective on the big man’s incredible career. Quite a collection of rare Sabonis footage exists in the collective consciousness of […]
Euroleague Final Four, 2011: Some trivia and factoids on this year’s tourney
As with any major sport tournament these days, the informational factoids flow freely through fandom, giving both typical fans and stat addicts extra stuff to look for in the games ahead … and who is BallinEurope to buck such a habit? Below run a few interesting milestones, achievements and straight-up trivia about the 2011 Euroleague […]
Euroleague Final Four flashback: CSKA Moscow vs. Real Madrid, 1969
The city of Barcelona has hosted the Euroleague Final Four three times before. In 1969, 1998 and 2003; for true devotees of European basketball, the memories of these three events will be nearly as tangible as this week’s on-court action. For those who don’t (or are too young to) remember, BallinEurope this week presents looks […]
Arvydas Sabonis: A career retrospective, via YouTube
BallinEurope sends out huge, 7’3” congratulations this morning to all-time great Arvydas Sabonis, finally inducted into the Professional Basketball Hall of Fame alongside luminaries such as Chris Mullin, Dennis Rodman (whoa, that’s still weird), Artis Gilmore, Tex Winter, “Goose” Tatum, Tom “Satch” Sanders, Tara Van Derveer, Herb Magee, and Teresa Edwards. A tribute in the […]