Quinton Hosley Emerges in Efes Pilsen-Real Madrid

Real Madrid won the match 95-81, and surged to 3-2 in Euroleague while dropping Efes Pilsen to 2-3. Real's Quinton Hosley did his best Niagra Falls impression this game, drowning Efes in a overpowering torrent of buckets.

• Hosley, a 6-6 swingman, who graduated Fresno St. two years ago, was making his first trip back to Turkey after dominating in the country last year. Playing for Izmir's Pinar Karşıyaka, Hosley averaged 23.2 points and 11.3 rebounds a game, garnering MVP honors for the domestic league.
• Although he hasn't been doing quite as well this year, averaging 12.2 points and 3.4 rebounds a game in Euroleague competition, he absolutely blew up against Efes. He scored 10 points in the first 8 minutes of the 1st quarter on an assortment of dunks, lay-ups, and short jumpers.
• He finished the 1st half with 20 points on 6/7 overall shooting in 11 minutes in the first half.
• For the game, he finished with 23 points on 6/7 shooting for 2-point range and 3/4 shooting from 3-point range in 23 minutes. Only 2 rebounds though.
• On the Turkish side, Serbian Milos Vujanic played an exceptional 2nd quarter, scoring 13 points on 3/3 shooting. His behind-the-back, hesitation, 8-foot teardrop to cap the first half was beauty borne of skill.
• Efes trailed 40-46 going into the 2nd half.
• Vujanic finished the game with 16 points while Charles Smith led Efes with 27 points.

N.B. In my preview article about Efes Pilsen, I noted the team's "takeover" of Turkish players this year relative to last year. For the record, 3 Efes Americans chipped in 42 of the team's 82 points against Real, while 2 of the team's Turks accounted for 20 of the points.

Efes Pilsen - Real Madrid: An experience made in Eurocasting Heaven

Using someone else's internet connection, I was able to tune into ESPN360 today and check out the recent match between Istanbul's Efes Pilsen (check out my preview article) and Real Madrid. The game was not broadcast by ESPN, but by Euroleague.tv and as watched the warm-ups I immediately noticed the familiar woodwind duduks of the Turkish crowd. Ah, memories...

A few other observations:

Listening to only one play-by-play announcer was a bit strange. It was like watching a man shoot play pool by himself. It seems Euroleague.tv does not have as large of an operating budget as the European broadcasters of soccer matches. The only 7,000 who watched the Efes-Real match in Istanbul bear testimony to this. Adding to the strangeness quotient was that the announcer was non-English speaking native. Some of the stranger, entertaining, things he said:

• Real's point guard Bullock throws alley-oop to Hosley, who lays it up in traffic. The announcer afterwards says: "Hosley, which were asking foul on that action."
• Real Madrid player makes a nice pivot and pass in the 2nd quarter. Announcer: "A gooood delicious deliver!"
• He tended to end everything with an extraneous "uh" - like a profoundly unsexy version of Michael Jackson, or Otis Redding.
• Efes' Vujanic missed a free throw and Real's Alex Mumbru almost hit a 3/4 court shot to end the 1st quarter.
• The announcer: "Missing the second-uh.. "Mumbru with a HOPE!.. close to the basket-uh..."
• Had a habit of saying a basketball player had found a "good solution' whenever he drove to the basket and scored a basket.

Like during Olympic basketball on nbc, euroleague.tv also didn't inject commercials during the breaks, leaving the American viewer to wallow in a kind of televised purgatory. Luckily, in this game, cheerleaders gesticulating wildly to songs that seemingly changed every 20-30 seconds filled the void.

ESPN 360's Euroleague Schedule

For Americans who have an interest in Euroleague basketball, ESPN's online station - ESPN 360 - will air 40 Euroleague games this season. It sounds all good and dandy, until you read the fine print - and find out that ESPN is in cahoots with certain cable internet providers but not others. Meaning if you use Comcast, only the largest provider in the nation, you cannot access this potentially wonderful feature. Instead, you must have:

AT&T, Verizon, RCN, Insight, Frontier, Cavalier, Charter, Mediacom, Conway, Grande Communications and many more. It is also now available at no cost to approximately 18 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via on-campus educational networks (with a ".edu" domain) and military networks (with a ".mil" domain).

Even if you have an AT&T account, as I do for my cell phone, still no cigar. You gotz to have that cable provider!

For those of you blessed with the above, go here for a schedule of upcoming games.

Oct. 29
Panathinaikos Athens at FC Barcelona

Nov. 5
Alba Berlin at Tau Ceramica

Nov. 12
Virtus Roma (Brandon Jennings' team!) at Tau Ceramica

Nov. 19
Real Madrid at Efes Pilsen (read my preview for this Turkish team here)