Not over yet (except if you’re French)
[Julien Debove] - Man it’s been a while no nothing. I was looking at the “latest posts” page of FIBA blogs and it looked like I was collecting pictures of Ryan Mc Neill out of a photo booth.
[by Julien Debove] - Man it’s been a while no nothing. I was looking at the “latest posts” page of FIBA blogs and it looked like I was collecting pictures of Ryan Mc Neill out of a photo booth.
The Euroleague season might be over, it won’t prevent me from writing new posts. Euroleague teams are actually still playing. Well, except if they’re French... I tell you why later.. Now that the European campaign is past, teams are trying to regain their crowns on the national level.
While most teams are competing for the national title, French teams stand as an exception once again. Traditional French powerhouse Pau-Orthez made the headlines this summer bringing Canadian coach Gordon Herbert and several former NCAA stars like Britton Johnsen, John Gilchrist, Aaron Miles or Michael Wright. Seven months later, Pau-Orthez did not even qualify for the play-offs... So after reaching the Euroleague Top 16 for the first time in a while, they won’t be back next year.
Le Mans earned a 3-year ticket for the Euroleague last year. And they were lucky to do so as they were downed in the first round of the play-offs this year. Only good news is Nicolas Batum, France’s rising star has delayed his departure to the NBA and Antoine Diot, MVP of the Under 16 European Championship 2 years ago just signed with the team.
Euroleague teams struggling that much in local competitions is not a common thing. Only Climamio Bologna in Italy did not reach the play-offs. And only Malaga (Spain) and Napoli (Italy) were knocked out in the first round. Dynamo Moscow lost to CSKA in the semis (Russia). Lietuvos Rytas lost to archrival Zalgiris Kaunas in the final round of the Lithuanian play-offs.
Other than that, every single team that made the Euroleague (Tau, Barcelona and Badalona in Spain, Roma in Italy, Olimpija Ljubljana in Slovenia, Partizan in Adriatic League, Cibona Zagreb in Croatia, Köln in Germany, Aris, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos in Greece, Maccabi in Israel, Prokom in Poland, CSKA in Russia and Efes and Ulker in Turkey) is still chasing another national trophy.