Mega Sports Updates

It’s been a busy - and random - sports week since the last post on Carolina Hellenic Blue. In the last four days we've been to two Nats games, one United game, and watched some Greek soccer and basketball. Here’s a quick rundown, in no particular order:

Hellenic Hoops

As part of the preparation for the 2009 European Championships in September, the 'new' Greek basketball team is playing a series of exhibition games and tournaments. Thanks to our new dish, I was able to watch Greece lose to Serbia last week 82-83 in Athens.

It's considered a 'new' team since - for the first time in years - the Hellenic squad is without Theo Papaloukas and Dimitris Diamantidis, arguably the two best Greek hoopsters on the planet.

The new team is also notable for having two Greek-Americans on their roster: THE Ohio State University's Kosta Koufos, and Nick Calathes (whose last name roughly means 'person with basket' or ‘basket maker’ in Greek). Koufos left school early, and had a decent rookie season last year for the Utah Jazz, and is the only Greek or Greek-American in the NBA. Fans may remember that after years of having at least one and usually two Greeks in the league, there were no Hellenes in the NBA during the 2007-2008 season.

Koufos was one of only two active NBA players in the game versus the long-time European hoops power, with Nenad Krstic of Oklahoma City playing for Serbia.

Neither Greek-American had a great game, though each had their moments and Koufos started. Calathes looked a lot quicker than anyone else on the floor and had a number of nice takes to the basket. His scoring though was off set by 5 turnovers while running the point as Greece’s back up one. Spanoulis led Greece with 21 points, and Sofoklis Schortsianidis had a great game off the bench. Greece's 'Baby Shaq' looks like he has lost a lot of weight.

Though they lost, Greece looked pretty good especially when former Houston Rocket Vassilis Spanoulis was running the point. Greece’s starting five – Spanoulis (Panathinaikos), Nikos Zisis (CSKA Moscow), Efstratios Perperoglou (Panathinaikos), Antonis Fotsis (former Memphis Grizzilies, currently Dynamo Moscow), and Koufos – make them one of the favorites to medal or win the European Championship next month in Poland.

Nationals

As noted a few blog posts ago, my Nats fever was cured by two moribund losses this week (witnessed in person on Wednesday and Friday nights). Let's hope the offense – which finally scored some runs on Saturday and Sunday - and John Lannan get back on track.

I went to the Strasburg press conference on Friday, which was kind of dull and staged (actually, they were ON a stage near third base). But I was impressed that about 1,000 fans showed up. Like the Caps until a few years ago - the Nats only draw around 20,000 a night - the Nats have a small but dedicated fan base, one that seems energized by Strasburg's signing.

DC United makes the blog!

Evan and I went to see David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy take on our hometown DC United on Saturday night. Unlike the last time he visited, a packed house of 40,000 to RFK to witness his MLB debut two Augusts ago, last night's game drew around 20,000 fans. Not only that, Beckham was consistently booed and mocked by the hard-core DC United fans (Screaming Eagles and Barra Brava, etc.; we had seats directly behind them.). Beckham made a few nice passes but overall was no big whoop, and the game itself did not have much flow or rhythm. DC United kept Landon Donovan, who played despite having the H1N1 virus, in check and he only had one or two nice runs but that's it. In general, the excitement generated by that game matched the final score, 0-0.

But United will take the tie; they’ve been struggling of late.

One more football update, then I’m off to bed.

Panathinaikos lost at home to Athletico Madrid, 2-3, on Tuesday in the play offs of the European Champions League. The Greens dominated the first half but still trailed 0-1 after 45 minutes. In the second half, Athletico Madrid scored two nice goals where they simply schooled – embarrassed - the Panathinaikos defense and keeper.

Sebastian Leto scored a nifty goal to get Pana back in the game, but Athletico tightened up their defense and that was that.

Game two is Tuesday in Madrid. Panathinaikos has to score at least 3 times and keep Athletico to one goal or less to advance, so the Champions League season in probably over for the Greens.

In contrast to Panathinaikos, who drew a match against a team from arguably the best league on the globe, Spain, Olympiacos easily defeated a team from Moldova in game one of their series. Game two, in Pireas, is Wednesday.

One more final four

There is another final four this weekend, as Panathinaikos plays for the Euroleague 2009 championship today against CSKA Moscow.  The game is a rematch of the 2007 championship, won by Pana in Athens.  This year's final four is in Berlin.

Panathinaikos defeated arch-rival Olympiakos 84 to 82 - in a thrilling game - on Friday night to reach the championship. That was a good game to watch (the entire Euro final four is on NBA TV), with lots of back and forth action and good shooting. Olympiakos had a chance to tie at the end but Bourousis (which loosely translates to 'can you' or 'did you try'), their center, missed a pretty good look down low.

The Greens were led by two NCAA/NBA alums, Maryland's Sarunas Jasikevicus and Arizona State's Mike Batiste.  Jasikevicus hit a number of big shots, mainly 3s, and Batiste had 4 dunks in the second half.  In addition to those two, the game featured a number of NBA alums and other well known players.   In addition to Jasikevicus and Batiste, Pana's roster includes Greek national Vasili Spanoulis (Houston Rockets), Antonis Fotsis (Memphis Grizzlies where he played one season with Batiste) and Maryland's Drew Nicholas.

Olympiakos features Temple's Lynn Greer (Milwaukee Bucks), Jannero Pargo (Arkansas and most recently the New Orleans Hornets),  and George Printezis (drafted by San Antonio but traded to the Toronto Raptors).  But their most famous player is former Atlanta Hawk Josh Childress.   Childress had a nice game, and finished with 11 points, but never really asserted himself. Though he got his hand on Bourousis' missed shot his tip-in did not go in.

Olympiakos will not win Euroleague, but Childress has helped lead his team to the top of the Greek basketball league standings.   And he says he will honor his three-year contract to play with the Pireaus-based team and continues to say nice things about living and playing in Greece.

A few more Euroleague Final Four observations:

• The crowd was loud for the entire 40 minutes.  Pana-Olympiacos is similar to Carolina-Duke, with the main difference being Carolina-Duke fans generally respect the other team.  Not so in Greece, where sport seems to be an excuse to recreate the city-state wars of the 5th and 4th centuries BC (Spartan dog, Corinthian pig, etc. etc.!).  
• The crowd was so loud that you could barely hear the announcers, one of whom, Jeff Taylor, is a Carolina grad.
• Not only was the audio bad but I noticed how spoiled I am by American sports broadcasting.  The camera angle for this game was way to wide.  It almost felt as if you were watching the game from the upper deck rather than on television.
• The court was surrounded by a net so fans could not throw stuff on the floor or at each other.  Just another reminder that as crass and tacky as American sports can get, European sport is much worse. Our venues aren't surrounded by nets, smoking is not allowed and the uniforms do not feature advertisements instead of city names or logos.
• For the record, the Greens were playing 'for' Cosmote, a Greek communications company, while the Reds (Olympiakos) appropriately enough were playing 'for' CitiBank.

NBA Playoffs

As entertaining as the Bulls-Celtics series was, I still haven't gotten into the NBA playoffs. The other first round series' were terrible, but I expect to start watching more intently once the conference finals start.  Watching the Lakers battle the Nuggets and the Celtics play the Cavaliers will be worth staying up for.

NATS UPDATE

Some good news from southwest Washington as Sharion Martis threw the first Nationals complete game since the 2006 season in defeating the Cardinals 6-1 on Saturday.  It was Manager Manny Acta's first complete game as Washington's manager.  

The combination of Martis' effectiveness and the Nats' woeful bullpen made Acta's decision to let this starter finish what he started an easy one. 

Zimmerman extended his hitting streak to 21 games, and Adam Dunn hit his seventh homer for the Nats.  Offense does not seem to be a problem for this squad, and Lannan, Olson and rookie Jordan Zimmermann have each had good starts lately. Let's hope the complete game inspires the bull pen and the Nats string some wins together and get close to 500. 

Punk Rock Americana

A brief respite from Carolina basketball to blog a bit about two great American - and punk rock - institutions: Habitat for Humanity and Alcoholics Anonymous.

As many probably heard, Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, died this week. Since it was founded in 1976, an auspicious year for America and punk rock, H4H has housed more than 1 and half million people in 3,000 locations (including Tallahassee, Florida where I worked on two houses in the late 80s) around the world.  Families living in Habitat homes do not pay interest on their mortgages and the homes are built by volunteers with donated materials.

Fuller, like his most high-profile supporter Jimmy Carter, was an evangelical Christian.  Unlike most of that ilk, he was not a hypocrite and put his beliefs into action . . .  rather than spend his time say, bashing gay people.  

But what he really was was a punk.   What could be more punk rock, more do it yourself, than building someone a house who doesn't have one?  He didn't wait for corporations or government to solve the problem of low income housing (though to be fair the U.S. government has probably built more low-income housing than any entity on earth), he did it himself.  He didn't sit around lamenting the problem; he identified it and tried to solve it.

DItto Alcoholics Anonymous.   A complete DIY operation - identify problem, identify solution - run by volunteers reaching out and helping their peers.  And it works!

In addition to being punk rock operations, H4H and AA are excellent examples of American participatory democracy. Citizens organizing themselves to make their society and country better on their own.  One of the things that makes American better than Europe (take your pick actually: baseball, Bill of Rights, better pizza, rock and jazz vs. opera and classical, etc.) is that we don't expect the state to fix everything. Here, democracy means more than voting. It means civic institutions and being involved in your community, and that's what these two organizations do (punk rock style).

Random Thoughts

• Good article on Bobby Frasor in today's N&O. With Graves out for the rest of the season I hope we'll soon see the 2006 Frasor reemerge for the Heels.  Also worth checking out the N&O's midseason report on ACC basketball.
• You heard it here first: watch Maine moderate Senator Susan Collins.  She knows the Dems don't get to 60 filibuster-proof votes without her and fellow Maine Republican - and Greek-American - Olympia Snowe.  Collins just got reelected and is already asserting herself as a key power broker. Witness her deal making on the economic stimulus bill last night.  Expect more of that to come.
• I was in Whole Foods last night; I'm always struck by how bad the music is in there.  It's usually a mix of boomer-dreck: Fleetwood Mac, Bob Seger, "Do You Like Pina Coladas . . ." . etc.  Shouldn't we hear more Pete Seeger than Bob Seeger at a store like that?  Anyway, last night they played "Lie to Me" by Chris Isaak.  I came home and have been listening to his second (self titled - 1987!) and third (Heart Shaped World) records ever since.  Both still sound great and unique twenty years later.  
• Some Hellenic hoops news.  Greece replaced coach Panagiotis Yannakis with Lithuanian and former Olympiacos coach Jonas Kazlauskas.   Coincidentally, Yannakis is the current coach of Olympiacos. Kazlauskas recently coach his national squad at the Olympics.  Yannakis is the Dean Smith of Greek hoops. He won a European championship as a player with Greece in 1987, defeating the USSR in the title game, and coached Greece to the 2005 European championship and a silver medal in the 2006 World championships (defeating the U.S. in the semi-finals). Kazlauskas takes over as Greece prepares for the 2009 European championships in Poland.
• One final final Hellenic hoops news.  If you have NBA TV you can watch Olympiacos play today - Feb. 7th, live - in the Eurobasket tournament.  American Josh Childress is hurt but you can still watch Theo Papaloukas hoop it up Hellenic style.
• In case anyone is wondering, 1976 was the U.S. Bicentennial and the year The Ramones released their first album.