The 2008-09 Euroleague Basketball season starts Monday at Buesa Arena in Vitoria, Spain, as Tau Ceramica hosts Fenerbahce Ulker in the traditional opening game. The event commemorates the 50th anniversary of Tau’s mother club, Saski Baskonia SAD, as it opens its brand new, state-of-the-art sports complex, the Baskonia Kirol Hiria (BAKH), hours before the game. Tau, which has already won the Spanish Supercup, is set to have its entire roster available for the big showdown, even though franchise big man and All-Euroleague center Tiago Splitter has not played an official game yet this season. Despite Fener’s youth, drive and talent, Tau enters the game as the clear favorite, mainly because of its incredible home-court record. However, other than CSKA, Ulker was the last Euroleague team to beat Tau in Vitoria, back on December 15, 2004.

BETTING ANALYSIS

It's definetely hard to find value in such strong lines which were available for correction since August. Punters and public made lines very hard to beat because those lines are now perfectly balances and the only advantage over the line we can get here is to find some very important club news and missings. Here we don't have any excluding those that Fenerbahce has Omer Asik, Semih Erden and Omer Onan out of this game because of injuries, while Tau Ceramica has Prigioni and Vidal as probable and Splitter is quiestionable but probably will make some minutes if situation will allow him to enter the court.

Fenerbahce has solid roster with great team chemistry from last season and so far their offense working really with with 88.8 pts per 7 games including 1 official. But all those games mainly were played against Turkish teams and it's hard to say how Fenerbahce balanced offense will work against "Tau-Ivanovic-Made" iron defense which is currently allows only 70 points per game in ACB league. A lot will depend on game pace which will dictate Tau Ceramica. So far Tau offense was not looking brilliantly because of short rotation and they used defense and low tempo to achieve their goals in ACB league but with deeper rotation this attitude may change.

I think that 11.5 pts handicap for TAU is little bit too much because but I am not a fan to play against superclubs with asian handicaps. I would not suprised if Fenerbahce will give a seriuos fight in first half of the game but sooner or later Tau Ceramica class, experience and home crowd will play major role and Tau will win win this game by 8-14 points.

I expect this game to be very interesting for TV-coverage but it's not ideal situation for betting purposes. I will take Fenerbahce over 71.5 at Unibet and G.Giricek to score over 13 points as TV-picks.


Recommended picks: Fenerbahce over 71.5 @ 1.90 Unibet , G.Giricek over 13 points (local)

Comments

Add New Search

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

&lt&lt Previous Page                    Next Page&gt&gt