Euroleague regular season update & playoff primer

[Orangutan]

I'm fascinated by the Euroleague because it's the highest non-WNBA level of pro play in the world. Among the very top teams, it may be as good or better than the WNBA.

It's fun tracking our favorite players' overseas stats, but you usually have to take them with a grain of salt given the poor level of competition. Given that only the very best teams in Europe qualify for the Euroleague, the stats are much more meaningful.

Also, they have a pretty good website - EuroLeague Women 2017-18

Live and archived games are available on FIBA's youtube page - FIBA

I though it would be fun to check out how group play went and what the playoff brackets look like. And away we go...

More posts to come!

 

[Orangutan]

Group A standings:

 

[Orangutan]

Group B standings:

 

[Orangutan]

A list of who is on what team. These are not necessarily the best players on each team but the names that I recognize. There are plenty of Europeans that I am not familiar with who put up good numbers. These are just the WNBA/NCAA names I think folks would know.

Dynamo Kursk – Angel McCoughtry, Nneka Ogwumike, Epiphanny Prince, Maria Vadeeva
Sopron – Crystal Langhorne, Angela Salvadores
USK Praha – Dewanna Bonner, Amanda Zahui B, Marta Xargay, Leticia Romero
Bourges – a bunch of French and Spanish players, Ruth Hamblin off the bench
Galatasaray – Allie Quigley
ESBVA-LM - None
CCC Polkowice – Alysha Clark, Artemis Spanou (played for Robert Morris), Temi Fagbenle (Harvard)
Castors Braine - None

Yakin Dogu – Courtney Vandersloot, Kayla McBride, Sandrine Gruda, Jantel Lavender
UMMC Ekaterinburg – Brittney Griner, Emma Meesseman, Kristi Toliver, Alba Torrens, *Maya Moore (recent addition)*
Fenerbahce – Kelsey Plum, Kia Vaughn, Aerial Powers
Famila Schio – Cecilia Zandalasini, Jolene Anderson
Perfumerias Avenida – Erika DeSouza, Angel Robinson
Nadezhda – Brionna Jones
Wisla Canpack – Cheyenne Parker
BLMA – None

As you can see, the teams stacked with big WNBA names tend to dominate.

 

[Orangutan]

Playoff brackets:

Quarterfinals (Best-of-3, to be played 2/28, 3/7, and 3/14)

Dynamo Kursk (1) v. Famila Schio (4)
UMMC Ekaterinburg (2) v. USK Praha (3)

Sopron (2) v. Fenerbahce (3)
Yakin Dogu (1) v. Bourges (4)

Semifinals (single game, 4/20)

Kursk/Schio winner v. UMMC/USK winner
Sopron/Fenerbahce winner v. YDU/Bourges winner

Finals (single game, 4/22)

 

[Orangutan]

Leading scorers:

 

[Orangutan]

Leading rebounders:

 

[Orangutan]

Assists leaders:

 

[Orangutan]

Hope folks found that interesting. I'm done with the initial dump of posts, so please discuss if you'd like.

I'm going to try to catch some of the playoffs. I'll be rooting for Yakin Dogu, which features two of my all-time faves, Vandersloot and McBride. A championship game against Kursk or Ekaterinburg would be mighty tasty.

The likely semifinal match between Kursk and Ekaterinburg figures to be one hell of a game...

 

[LasVegasYank]

What a terrific effort! Kudos and high fives.