Getting serious in group after group - Flavio Tranquillo

For a unique perspective on the most exciting months of the season, Euroleague.net brings you a new blogger, Flavio Tranquillo, a ranking expert on world basketball at its finest. Flavio has long been known as the voice of basketball in his native Italy- and for good reason. But in addition to communicating his expertise as an announcer, Flavio has the background of a coach, the curiosity of a journalist, and most importantly, the devotion of a basketball lover!

Now that every team has won and lost one game each, Group F is really up for grabs. Particularly impressive for me was watching Efes Pilsen becoming the second team to beat Montepaschi Siena this season. (Regal FC Barcelona did it twice). The coming week's games will write another chapter in a story that promises to be more exciting than an Agatha Christie thriller. When Efes Pilsen plays with the intensity and precision they displayed against Siena, there's no team they should take a backseat to. The Efes roster is never-ending, they have a ton of big bodies who can play and they use the baseline as well as anybody in the league to keep opponents honest. I really can't make up my mind about who will finally make the playoffs from this very balanced group, which also features a Maccabi team that beat Real Madrid by counting on very athletic big men: D'or Fischer and Stephane Lasme can really, really jump out of the gym. This week's Maccabi-Efes showdown in Tel Aviv will be a battle of styles, between the rugged foursome Peker/Kasun/Kuqo/Santiago of the visitors and the Maccabi high-flyers, who are so dangerous when you leave them to help because they can finish alley-oop passes with thunderous dunks. And don't you think that Coach Messina will be primed for the game in Siena, his country, on the same parquet where he got beaten by 16 with Benetton on April Fool's Day 2004 and by 18 with CSKA last season? Speaking of point differences, they might very well decide the outcome of this thriller group. That's why coming back from down 22 in Istanbul was so important for Montepaschi, for instance, even on a night when Siena was unusually down in terms of intensity and badly outrun by Efes Pilsen. How down? Montepaschi missed 11 free throws after having missed 52 in the previous 11 games as Henry Domercant's streak of made free throws was stopped at 51. Terrell McIntyre, a 41% three-point shooter in the regular season, is shooting 2 for 16 (12.5%) in the Top 16's first couple of games. But Siena was nonetheless able to play hard until the buzzer, ending up with a 10-point defeat that is a testament to their resiliency. "Never underestimate the heart of a champion" is a saying that definitely will be remembered by Coach Messina to his players before taking the floor on Thursday.

Let me tell you, if you can put Partizan beating Panathinaikos and Barcelona back-to-back into words, then you have a pretty good sense for writing. But you can't say anything less about Maroussi putting the champions in a pretty deep 0-2 hole. It makes for a situation that reminds me of 2008, when the Greens lost their first three Top 16 games and still made the playoffs (only to lose in three games to Tau Ceramica). Which is not to say history will easily repeats itself. When the Top 16 started, I envisioned Thursday's showdown between PAO and FCB as a potential Final Four appetizer. (Don't tell me you didn't, too, because I'm not gonna believe you anyway!) I still think it's gonna be a dandy and the best game Europe can offer nowadays, even if the loser will have a hard time coping with the defeat. But now the real showdown might be the one in Athens this week, where Maroussi and Partizan play with legitimate chances to advance to the next round. You can't help but love what these two teams are doing for the cause of parity in the Euroleague. Now, on any given night, you really believe each of the two teams has a chance, and this is invaluable. I have the utmost respect for what Coach Vujosevic and Coach Bartzokas are doing, for their ability to squeeze depth from their rosters by substituting early and often to keep the intensity level high and, more than anything else, I like the way each player understands that adhering to the team concept gives them the possibility to compete - even at this high level.

On Wednesday, Prokom will travel to Moscow to play for first place in Group G. The Polish team had to beat Khimki in the last regular season game just to advance this far, but now has proceeded to start the Top 16 by winning two games with a +44 point differential, and that does not happen by accident. I think CSKA has legitimate Final Four potential and might benefit from being a little underrated due to its tough start, so I think they will be the natural favorites. But I really believe Prokom is talented enough to end up among the top eight teams in the continent. Success for them is just a matter of two factors to me: 1) players jelling together (and time is the only ingredient you can't buy) and 2) getting Qyntel Woods to play at his level. Now, you might have heard or seen first-hand that Qyntel is not always the most consistent player on the planet. But he is nonetheless the quintessential unguardable forward, too big for a true small forward to handle and too skilled for a true power forward to stop. Ask for confirmation in Moscow, where Woods played an unbelievable half of basketball in a 2008 playoff game won by Olympiacos with a Lynn Greer buzzer-beater. CSKA came back to win the series and the Euroleague, but when Qyntel Woods is on …. well, he's on!

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FLAVIO TRANQUILLO - ITALY