VALENCIA (Jeff Taylor's Eurovision) - What is the one thing that stands out about the successful Greek teams in recent times, be it the national side or or Euroleague heavyweights Olympiacos and Panathinaikos?

You might say they have all had Vassilis Spanoulis, the 32-year-old guard who has won titles with each.

He played in Greece's EuroBasket 2005 championship-winning side, and he's been the Euroleague Final MVP for Panathinaikos (2009) and Olympiacos (2012 and 2013).

Yes, all great Greek teams seem to have Spanoulis.

But there is something else that brings wins to the Greeks.

They usually win when they control the tempo of games.

When Olympiacos arrived in Valencia on Thursday to play in the first Euroleague game of the season for both sides, they did so knowing that game tempo was the key.

They had to prevent the Spaniards from getting into transition.

Well, they met that objective in a 71-68 win.

After the contest, Milan Tomic, who was promoted to head coach following the resignation of Georgios Bartzokas just a week before the Euroleague season tipped off, spoke not about the great plays Spanoulis made, of which there were many.

He didn't single out the outstanding contributions of Kostas Sloukas, Evangelos Mantzaris, Matt Lojeski or Othello Hunter.

Tomic instead talked about tempo, and the Reds' ability to win that aspect of the game.

"We said that if we wanted to control the game tempo, we had to control the boards, go for offensive rebounds and spend our fouls wisely until reaching the penalty," he said.

"We did a great job. I don't remember now, but Valencia maybe scored one or two fast breaks in the entire game, and this is a team that likes to run a lot and even takes three-point shots in fast breaks."

European coaches no more for Mexico, Puerto Rico
There seemed to be an acceptance by both Mexico and Puerto Rico that for each team to achieve better results, there was a need to bring in European coaches.

Mexico were led by Sergio Valdeolmillos the past few years while Puerto Rico had Paco Olmos.

Both Valdeolmillos and Olmos are Spaniards, and the teams actually met in the Final of the 2013 FIBA Americas Championship, a tournament won by the Mexicans.

Each was in charge of those teams at the FIBA Basketball World Cup this summer, and now neither is at the helm.

Valdeolmillos accomplished his aim of getting Mexico past the Group Phase.

They exited the tournament after their Round of 16 demolition at the hands of the USA.

They had virtually no chance of beating the United States, so that was not a blight on the coach's record.

Mexico recently announced former Chicago Bulls center Bill Cartwright as their new coach, leaving Valdeolmillos out of a job.

Puerto Rico have cut ties with Olmos because of their poor performance at the World Cup, where they only managed to beat the Philippines in Group B.

Carlos Calcano, a veteran coach of Puerto Rico, will lead the national team at the Central American and Caribbean Games.

Earlier this year, there were rumblings that Valdeolmillos had a stressful relationship with his bosses.

Change happens. But instead of going with a European coach, they have gone with an American. It's going to be interesting to see what Cartwright does with the team.

A crazy, crazy night in Montevideo
I'm not sure how many people stayed up to watch the last game of Group C in the Liga Sudamericana on Thursday, but for those who did - it was wild.

The contest was played in Montevideo, Uruguay, between the hosts Aguada and Brazilians Winner Limeira.

The beauty of the internet is that now, no matter where we are, most games can be seen.

Anyway, Aguada, because they had fallen the night before to Argentino de Junin by nine points, had to win by five against Winner in order to progress to the Semi-Final Round on a goal differential tiebreaker.

That would see them in second place in the fourt-team Group C behind Winner and ahead of Argentino, with all three teams on 2-1 records.

Aguada, without injured duo Leandro Garia Morales and Martin Osimani, are not nearly as strong as they would have been this season but they still battled in Group C, only to come up short of their aim by a few points.

Watching their game against Winner was confusing because at the end of regulation, Aguada intentionally missed free-throws that could have won the game.

They did the right thing because their only hope of advancing was to get into overtime and to then win by the required margin of five points.

Even so, it's strange watching a team miss free-throws that would win a game.

In the overtime, the clash turned bizarre.

Rodrigo Trelles hit a three-pointer with three seconds to go to give Aguada a 74-70 lead, still one-point shy of the +5 margin of victory that was needed.

The hosts immediately fouled Deryk Ramos, and the Winner point guard went to the other end with just a couple of seconds remaining and made two free-throws to reduce Aguada's advantage to 74-72.

Aguada had no timeouts left.

When they inbounded the ball, instead of attempting a desperation three, Trelles intentionally put the ball in the wrong basket in an attempt to give the other team, Winner, two more points in order to tie the game and force a second overtime.

There was a brief pause when it seemed that no one knew what has happening and then the referees shook their heads, called a turnover against Aguada.

The game ended with Brazilians Winner losing 74-72, but nevertheless clinching first place ahead of Argentino de Junin and then Aguada.

This sort of performance could happen in Europe as well where goal differential is often a determining factor in tie-breaking situations.

The system seems flawed to me. Let's put our thinking caps on and come up with a better way.

Jeff Taylor

FIBA

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