Europe - No Euroleague Championship Moscow Metro Match

From coloradostate.scout.com
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One thing is for sure, as the European women’s basketball league reaches its quarterfinal stage of the 2008-09 competition this week: There will not be an all-Moscow final between Russian capital giants CSKA and Spartak. As Full Court correspondent Harald Landwehr reports from Stuttgart, CSKA, including WNBA stars Becky Hammon, Janel McCarville, and Ann Wauters, are already out of the race.

CSKA fell short in the Round of 16 to Spanish club Halcon Avenida, 74-83, after double overtime in the decisive match of a best-of-three series. It was a disappointing loss for the Russian club, which finished third in Euroleague play in 2007 and runner-up in 2006.

CSKA, which was shaken by massive financial problems and the departure of head coach Gundars Vetra to intra-country rival Ekaterinburg before the start of the playoffs, had beaten the Spaniards, 95-64, on Russian home soil just five days earlier to force the decider. Fighting a losing battle to extend her season, Hammon capped a 14.5 ppg season by putting up 20 points before fouling out in the decisive Game Three, which was by far her best performance of the series.

One other major surprise to start the playoffs of the Euroleague championships was the Hungarian team MiZo Pecs 2010 throwing Umana Reyer Venice out of the race, beating the Italians in just two games. Umana, including Americans Essence Carson and Vanessa Hayden-Johnson, finished the group stages as winner of Pool B ahead of CSKA and Gambrinus Brno and went into the duel as heavy favorites over the fourth-place Hungarians. Led by Dalma Ivanyi and Nicole Ohlde (17 points each), Pecs stole Game One of the series, 61-60, in Italy and closed the surprise with a 65-57 home win.

Meanwhile Ros Casares from Spain, which added Candace Wiggins to its roster in January after Roneeka Hodges left in December, had no problems in booking its place in the Round of Eight, easily beating Slovakian champions Broker Kosice--by a cumulative margin of 78 points in the two games! Former Stanford standout Wiggins (23) and Delisha Milton (18) led the Spaniards to a 98-53 win in Game One, which was followed by an 81-48 trouncing of Kosice on their home court. Even a standout performance by Kosice’s Cathrine Kraayeveld (14 points, 10 boards) couldn’t prevent the humiliation.

There will be a nice mixture of nations in the quarterfinal round of the competition, with only Russia having brought two clubs to this stage of the season.

One of them will be UMMC of Ekaterinburg, which smashed Lithuanian rivals TEO Vilnius in just two games. After a 91-61 win in front of a home crowd of 4,000 in which UMMC’s Agnieszka Bibrzycka led the effort with 21 points while Maria Stepanova added 17, the Russians sealed their advance with a 69-46 win in Lithuania.

Other quarterfinalists include MKB Euroleasing from Hungary, advancing after a close two-to-one series agains Wisla Can-Pack of Krakow, Poland, despite 24 points from Wisla’s American star Candice Dupree in Game Three of the series. Though her team fell, Dupree was selected for the All-Star-Game which will take place in Paris.

Trying to make it a three-peat this season is the heavy favorite amongst the final eight teams, Spartak Moscow. The Russian giants, who won the European League Championships in 2007 and 2008, advanced to the next round with two easy wins over ZVVZ USK Praha from the Czech Republic (102-86 and 92-78). Spartak, featuring the Who’s Who of women’s basketball has a starting five that every coach in the world would dream of. Name it: Lauren Jackson, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Sylvia Fowles join hometown hero Maria Karpunina (a shooting guard whose overall stats are unimpressive but who has played important clutch roles in the past)! With the depth to bring Kelly Miller or Russian power forward Tatiana Shchegoleva off the bench, who will have a real chance to prevent Laszlo Ratgeber’s squad from making it three in a row?

Praha, including Swin Cash and a very strong Lindsay Whalen, tried their best, but failed.

Next up for Spartak will be Ros Casares, but even the Spaniards will be heavy underdogs. Much closer encounters are expected between Bourges and MKB Euroleasing and Halcon Avenida taking on Pecs. Ekaterinburg will meanwhile go up against Fenerbahce from Istanbul, Turkey. The Turks, led by Tammy Sutton-Brown (28 points in Game Three) and 34-year old Katie Smith (who collected the same number of points in game one), ousted Gdynia from Poland, 2-1, in the previous round.

The quarterfinal stage will be played today and Friday. MKB Euroleasing took its opening game, 68-65, over Bourges Basket, as did Halcon Avenida, 85-63, over MiZo Pecs 2010; UMMC Ekaterinburg, 94-62, over Fenerbahce; and Spartak, a surprisingly close 65-57 over Ros Casares. If three games are necessary, February 25 would be the date.

The finals will take place on April 5.