ACB League: Round 3

This weekend was played the 3^rd round in ACB league. At this moment, it’s clear that Regal Barcelona and Tau Ceramica are the best teams in the competition, while Bruesa, ViveMenorca, C.B. Murcia and Cajasol couldn’t get a win yet. The last one of them, the sevillian team, even lost two consecutive games this week by at least twenty points of difference.

Some things to pay attention:

Real Madrid started to play like a machine, at least on the second half of the game, against one of the weakest teams of the league, Bruesa. Their main player nowadays is being Felipe Reyes, who even reached the prize “player of the week”, thanks to his 29 points and 13 rebounds. The team of coach Plaza was widely questioned, but this time they showed what all their fans were waiting for. On the other hand, Bruesa didn’t have the obligation to win this time, but they shouldn’t wait for too long to start. They have an experienced team (maybe too much), so they know the league, and they can be in trouble if in the next few weeks they still are in the same conditions.

Barcelona won one of the best games of the round: their match against Pamesa Valencia at home. The Catalonian team has a great amount of possibilities to play, many players to score, a very physical team inside and fast outside, and players like Basile and Grimau, who always give their best for the team. Their young coach, Xavi Pascual, who was surprisingly re-newed at the end of last season, is dealing quite well with that collection of stars. At the end of the second half, Navarro played his first minutes of this season, after recovery of a injury. This time, Pamesa couldn’t play very good, especially because their starter point guard Shammond Williams was not in the game. Who knows what he was thinking in his comeback to Palau Blaugrana? Neither Perovic nor Douglas had their better day in the scoring.

Tau Ceramica is still being a force in Spanish basketball. After a summer with no surprising signings as always, and the departure of players like Planinic and Singleton, it was not supposed to be the best year for the vitorians. But the arriving of a symbol like Dusko Ivanovic gave some hopes to their fans. This was proven to be absolutely true. This team has the heart and the passion of the times with Scola, Nocioni, Oberto… in the body of Prigioni, Rakocevic, Vidal, Mickeal… with a handful of young players like San Emeterio, Barac, Teletovic, and even an injured Splitter who has not played yet this season. The feeling has changed so much that even Will McDonald is playing his best season in Spain, after a very disappointing last year. All this said, maybe it’s not strange that they won a match on the road against one of the best team in the league, Unicaja. It was a brilliant game, plenty of good actions, with Marcus Haislip being the best of his team and Carlos Cabezas showing why he should have gone with the national team this last summer. At the end, better decisions by Basque team gave them the victory in a great basketball game.

Estudiantes won their first match of the season. It was strange that this mixture of old and young player couldn’t win previously, but this weekend they won really easy against a C.B. Murcia which was in the game during a few minutes. A great Iturbe, along with Jasen, Petar Popovic (who deserves a long-extended contract for the rest of the season) and long-awaited prospect Suárez reached their team to the win. Murcia was overpassed in every aspect of the game, and Chris Thomas never could pace his team.

In Granada, good and bad news for the local team. Curtis Bortchard is again injured, this time with a broken finger in his right hand. It seems this player won’t never stop injuring, what a pity. The good news are that his teammates didn’t seem to miss him. They played really well, with a Juampi Gutiérrez and Aleks Maric doing their jobs efficiently. Pablo Aguilar, a young prospect from the city who played last year on Real Madrid’s small team, became the star on the game, with great dunks and very solid scoring skills. It seems this year they won’t lack that inside scorer as previous year. The visiting team, Cajasol who had suffered a huge defeat three days before against Unicaja at home, again showed that they are not in this league. Maybe they are in LEB, or somewhere around, but definitely not in ACB. Now the problem is not just the inside game. The problem is the entire team. Bennett is lost, Rivero is not familiar with the league yet, Ellis has good intentions but that’s all, Ignerksi can’t score… So many problems that Manel Comas has to work very hard this week to fit the team. Next game at home might be a nightmare for his team if they don’t reach their first victory.

In Menorca, bad luck for the local tam again. After losing against Tau by one point, leading the score the rest of the time, now was Joventut which took the win from the island. Bracey Wright has taken the place of Rudy on the scoring, and while the team doesn’t play as solid as last year, they’re still waiting for Ricky Rubio, who can change lots of things in this team. The results of the round were: