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So the group draw for the new season was made.
GROUP A
Tau Ceramica
Olympiacos
Efes Pilsen
Climamio Bologna
Prokom Trefl
Dynamo Moscow
Le Mans Sarthe
RheinEnergie
GROUP B
Maccabi Elite
Panathinaikos
Unicaja
Cibona
Union Olimpija
Partizan
Lottomatica Roma
DKV Joventut
GROUP C
CSKA Moscow
Winterthur FCB
Benetton Treviso
Fenerbahce Ulker
Zalgiris
Pau-Orthez
Aris TT Bank
Eldo B. Napoli
Group B is the strongest group for me. Panathinaikos vs Maccabi should be a great game. I predict that Cibona, Olimpija and probably Partizan could be at the bottom. As for Group C it is weaker. I'd place CSKA, Barcelona, Benetton, Zalgiris and Fenerbahce at the top. Clearly CSKA and Barca should be fighting for thr first two places but I think that other teams that I mentioned could also mount a serious challenge.
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Hmm, check out the betting [url="http://http"]click[/url], Since I haven't been following European basketball for a while, I can't really comment, but what does everyone think of the odds?
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Gameweek 1 results.
Group A
Efes Pilsen 71-67 Prokom
Le Mans 82-71 Climamio Bologna
Olympiacos 97-78 Tau Ceramica
Dynamo Moscow 75-68 RheinEnergie
Group B
Cibona 77-61 Union Olimpija
Lottomatica Roma 65-60 Partizan
Maccabi Elite 106-101 Unicaja
DKV Joventut 79-82 Panathinaikos
Group C
Eldo Basket Napoli 64-74 CSKA Moscow
Aris TT Bank 66-58 Fenerbahce Ulker
Pau-Orthez 66-72 Winterthur FC Barcelona
Benetton Treviso 95-82 Zalgiris
Videos [url="http://http"]here[/url].
Zalgiris had the same problem as they did last season - turnovers. Defense was far from good, many unprepared shots. We have very good players but they weren't used as they should. Next week Zalgiris will play Eldo Basket at home and we should get the first win.
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Saw the ?algiris game, and I must say that I was disappointed considering the recent LKL performances. Popovic was good, Penney was good but there was a lot of carelessness, silly passes, losing the ball and so on.
The team needs some tighter more organised play.
Well, lookin' forward to the next game, would like to see some improvement.
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Good preformance against Napoli. Only managed to see the second half, but was quite impressed. Need to cut down on mistakes, though.
Definately looking forward to the Barcelona game.
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It was a good result but the game needs to improved. The defence is too open. Result could have been much greater if Zalgiris players had defended better and not let open shots. Of course conceding only 65 points is a good result. Marcelinho is back after injury and Barca game will be very interesting. Zalgiris look very strong on paper and we need to prove that on court.
Good job for Partizan. Maccabi don't look as good as we used to see them. And I think that this year we won't see them in the Final Four.
The rest of the results:
Tau Ceramica 77-61 Dynamo Moscow
Climamio Bologna 86-93 Olympiacos
Union Olimpija 83-72 Lottomatica Roma
Panathinaikos 86-69 Cibona
Unicaja 66-68 DKV Joventut
Partizan 103-91 Maccabi Elite
Zalgiris 83-65 Eldo Basket Napoli
Fenerbahce Ulker 66-68 Pau-Orthez
CSKA Moscow 83-68 Aris TT Bank
RheinEnergie 68-82 Efes Pilsen
Prokom 69-67 Le Mans
Winterthur FC Barcelona 82-69 Benetton Treviso
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Gameweek 3 fixtures:
GROUP A
RheinEnergie - Tau Ceramica
Efes Pilsen - Le Mans
Olympiacos - Prokom Trefl
Dynamo Moscow - Climamio
GROUP B
DKV Joventut - Partizan
Union Olimpija - Panathinaikos
Maccabi Elite - Lottomatica
Cibona - Unicaja
GROUP C
Eldo Napoli - Aris TT Bank
Pau-Orthez - CSKA Moscow
Benetton - Fenerbahce Ulker
Zalgiris Kaunas - Winterthur FCB
Clearly the match of the week is Zalgiris vs Barca. Can't wait for it. The atmosphere will be brilliant as always. Zalgiris have a good chance to win and this would be very important win for them. In group A the only unpredictable game is Dynamo vs Climamio. It should be a good game. It will be interesting to see if Partizan can repeat the shock of last week and this time defeat Joventut. Maccabi -Lottomatica should be a tight game. Napoli, CSKA, Benetton and Zalgiris to win in group C.Your predictions?
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I would LOVE to see Ã
½algiris win, I can't predict anything accurately since I haven't followed club basketball for a while (started watching this season online from the UK), so I can't really say much. BUT I do know that FCB is a very good club. Having said that, this year we have lots of new foreign players - who are very talented, i.e. Popovic, Penney, Machado, Mottola and great Lithuanian talent. Really hope to see us go far.
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Wednesday's results:
GROUP A
RheinEnergie 70-102 TAU Ceramica
GROUP B
DKV Joventut 82-51 Partizan
Olimpija 65-86 Panathinaikos
GROUP C
Eldo Napoli 71-69 Aris TT Bank
Pau-Orthez 73-67 CSKA Moscow
Benetton 93-83 Fenerbahce
Undoubtedly the biggest sensation is current champions CSKA losing agains Pau Ortez. But that just makes group C even more interesting. In all the other games favourites won as expected. Only Napoli vs Aris as the result shows was a tight game and it should have been so.
Today the rest of the games will be played with a big game in Group C Zalgiris vs Barcelona. It should be excellent match <img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thup.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':thup:' />
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Nov 9, 2006, 9:37 pm
(This post was last modified: Mar 2, 2010, 2:13 pm by TalkBasket.)
2 words - "Ah, crap".
It's amazing how the referee can ruin a match with a bad decision. In no way at all was that a technichal foul from any perspective. Apart from that, it was a very entertaining game which shouldn't have ended in such a fashion. Zalgiris had probably about only half the amount of rebounds, but still kept the result close (until the last few minutes, at least), so well done to them and well done to Barcelona. JC Navarro is an amazing player by any standards and it was practically impossible to stop him.
Generally, I think Barca deserved to win it, BUT you never know what coulda happened <img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=' ' />
Bah, I'm still angry about that decisison :dry:
Ah well, guess I should look forward to the next match against Fernebahce. <img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thup.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':thup:' />
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Olympiacos 97-74 Prokom
Efes Pilsen 53-64 Le Mans
Dynamo Moscow 78-73 Climamio Bologna
Cibona 87-83 Unicaja
Zalgiris 86-93 Winterthur FCB
Maccabi Elite 78-65 Lottomatica Roma
As I expected it was very entertaining match. The game was very close. Barca's shooting was very good but Zalgiris' defence once again failed to work as it should. They gave too many open shots and some easy points in the paint. The referee's decision to give technical foul to Kirk Penney was harsh. It decided the result. On the other hand Zalgiris had 3 chances to equalise when they were 2 points down but they wasted their opportunities. This result gives hopes for the future. Zalgiris are a very strong team this year. If they work on some elements such as defence they can go far.
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Wednesday, November 15
GROUP A
Tau Ceramica - Efes Pilsen
GROUP B
Panathinaikos - Lottomatica
Partizan - Cibona
GROUP C
CSKA Moscow - Benetton Treviso
Aris TT Bank - Pau-Orthez
Thursday, November 16
GROUP A
Climamio - RheinEnergie
Prokom Trefl - Dynamo Moscow
Le Mans - Olympiacos
GROUP B
Unicaja - Union Olimpija
Maccabi Elite - DKV Joventut
GROUP C
Winterthur FCB - Eldo Napoli
Fenerbahce Ulker - Zalgiris
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Dec 21, 2006, 10:57 pm
(This post was last modified: Mar 2, 2010, 2:13 pm by TalkBasket.)
Well, there ya have it. Žalgiris are out - no more outside mathematical chances no more anything whatsoever.
Another day, another loss. 7 in a row, now. And 8 out of 9.
One thing that really annoyed me is Beard's ridiculous, over-ambitious passes. I mean, the guy played great but the made he wrong decision at the end of the match and he himself knew it.
Kalnietis did pretty well. Penney wasn't all that good. But to be honest, the whole team was bad at one point or another. In fact, several points throughout the match.
I dunno what Žalgiris will do now - they will either stop caring completely and just lose the remaining matches without a fight -- OR (this is my preferred outcome) - becuase of the lack of pressure they'll play flowing basketball and win the rest of their matches. No chance, but you can always hope, eh.
I'm certainly not getting my hopes up, though :dry:
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Group A
Team W L
Tau Ceramica 10 1
Olympiacos 9 2
Dynamo Moscow 7 4
Efes Pilsen 6 5
Prokom 4 7
Le Mans 3 8
Climamio Bologna 3 8
RheinEnergie 2 9
Group B
Team W L
Panathinaikos 11 0
DKV Joventut 7 4
Maccabi Elite 6 5
Cibona 5 6
Partizan 4 7
Lottomatica Roma 4 7
Unicaja 4 7
Union Olimpija 3 8
Group C
Team W L
CSKA Moscow 10 1
Winterthur FCB 8 3
Benetton Treviso 6 5
Pau-Orthez 6 5
Aris TT Bank 5 6
Fenerbahce Ulker 4 7
Eldo Napoli 4 7
Zalgiris 1 10
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Jan 25, 2007, 10:42 pm
(This post was last modified: Mar 2, 2010, 2:13 pm by TalkBasket.)
FINALLY. A victory for Žalgiris!
<img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=' ' />
77:66 against Aris.
Good result, although we managed to nearly blow a 20-point lead. So, getting better but very slowly.
And way too late, of course.
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I expected them to win after they defeated Lietuvos Rytas in BBL. They needed something like that to get back confidence. Machado was playing far below his abilities at the start of the season when he recovered from injury but during last couple of weeks he seems to have found his game. DeJuan Collins played only his second game for Zalgiris and only first in Euroleague but he was very important. When this crisis began I was almost 100% sure that Zalgiris will lose LKL finals 0-4 to Rytas but now it looks like Rytas will have to prepare very well for it. I would to see long and interesting series like we had a few years ago when it was 4-3 and equalising 3-pointer in that last seconds of the last macth and then overtime. You couldn't think of better scenario than that.
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Group stage ends today. TOP 16 draw will be made on the 5th February.
Wednesday
Eldo Napoli 62-64 Benetton*
Pau-Orthez* 68-56 Zalgiris
Aris TT Bank* 75-82 Winterthur*
CSKA* 85-66 Fenerbahce Ulker
Thursday
Efes Pilsen* - Dynamo Moscow*
Olympiacos* - RheinEnergie
Tau Ceramica* - Le Mans
Prokom Trefl - Climamio
Lottomatica - Cibona
DKV Joventut* - U. Olimpija
Maccabi* - Panathinaikos*
Partizan - Unicaja
* Qualified for Top 16
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Quarter Finals start on April 3rd. It will be series till one of the teams wins two games.
Tau Ceramica vs Olympiakos
CSKA Moscow vs Maccabi
Panathinaikos vs Dinamo Moscow
Unicaja vs Barcelona
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Supports: Panathinaikos
So, any predictions?
TAU-Olympiakos
TAU got the hardest home ground (they haven't lost there for almost 2 1/2 years now) and with the coming of Malkovich they are going to play better defence, a word which is unknown to Olympiakos and Gershon. Add to that the better squad TAU got and you got your first entrance to the Final Four.
Panathinaikos - Dynamo Moscow:
An odd pair with a lot of ties. Ivkovic is Obradovic' mentor, Papadopoulos and Fotsis of Dynamo have won 2 different Euroleague titles with Panathinaikos. But given the fact that the Final Four is taking place in home stadium of Panathinaikos, their full squad, their coach and fans and the injury of Hansen from Dynamo we have our 2nd entrance of Final Four.
CSKA Moscow:
CSKA is Euroleague holders with some major stars and a great coach. They ve only got 1 defeat so far (the best record). On the opposite is Maccabi who is nothing like the Maccabi we have known, with no Parker, Baston, Gershon etc they will not cause much troubles to CSKA.
Unicaja-Barca:
Here's the most tricky pair of all. Barca got the better squad and coach but Unicaka got the team and the chemistry plus the home advantage.
Really hard to predict anything here. Truth to be said i prefer Barca.
Respect and thanks for everything:
Alvertis, Bodiroga, Jasikevicius, Radja, Wilkins, Vrankovic, Fotsis, Rebraca, Kattash, Gentile, Koch, Middleton, Kutluay, Rogers, Papadopoulos, Becirovic, Tomasevic, Siskauskas, Pekovic, Lakovic, Vujanic, Chatzivrettas, Maljkovic, Spanoulis and many more to follow in the near future.
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Here's my prediction in %'s
TAU Ceramica vs Olympiakos 65-35
Panathinaikos vs Dynamo 70-30
CSKA vs Maccabi 90-10
Unicaja vs Barcelona 45-55
Panathinaikos and CSKA are the strongest favourite from all quarter-final matches in my opinion. Maccabi is less than a shadow of its previous team. It is only the name remaining. They even started losing in Israeli league.
Panathinaikos still has more quality players than Dynamo and I think they won't have too much trouble.
I hope to see tight matches and not big wins already in first leg. On the other hand it's not the points difference that matters here so a team might lose by 20 and win two games and go to Final Four.
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