| PANIONIOS B.C. ΠΑΝΙΩΝΙΟΣ K.A.E. |
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| Nickname | Historic Blue-Reds Panthers |
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| Leagues | Greek League Greek Cup |
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| Founded | 1919 | |||
| History | 1919 - present | |||
| Arena | Nea Smyrni Indoor Hall (seating capacity: 2,000) Hellinikon Olympic Arena (seating capacity: 15,000)[1] |
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| Location | Nea Smyrni, Athens, Greece | |||
| Team colors | Blue and Red |
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| Head coach | Nenad Marković | |||
| Championships | Greek Cups (1): 1991 |
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| Website | panioniosbc.gr | |||
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Panionios B.C. (Greek: Πανιώνιος KAE) is the Greek professional basketball club that plays its home games in Nea Smyrni, Athens, Greece. The club is also widely known as Πανιώνιος Γυμναστικός Σύλλογος Σμύρνης, or Panionios Gymnastikos Syllogos Smyrnis, which is the Pan-Ionian Gymnastic Association of Smyrna. This is usually abbreviated to the club name of Πανιώνιος Γ.Σ.Σ. Panionios BC is the basketball department of the Panionios Gymnastic Club that is based in Nea Smyrni, Athens, Greece. The team's colors are blue and red.
Panionios BC has been a long-time club of the Greek A1 League, which is considered one of the best domestic basketball leagues in Europe. Recently, Panionios BC has also competed in the Euroleague, which is widely regarded as the 2nd-best basketball league in the world behind the NBA. For sponsorship reasons the club is currently also known as Panionios On Telecoms and was previously also known as Panionios Forthnet. The owner of the club is Elias Lianos, the founder of Proton Bank.
Well-known players that have played with the club over the years have included: Thurl Bailey, P.J. Brown, Mitchell Wiggins, Travis Mays, Panagiotis Giannakis, Theo Papaloukas, Žarko Paspalj, and Fanis Christodoulou.
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The basketball clubs' parent athletic union, the Panionios Gymnastic Club was founded in the year 1890 in İzmir, Ottoman Empire (located today in the modern country of Turkey), making it one of the oldest sporting clubs in Europe. The sporting clubs' basketball department was founded in the year 1919. After the Greek military suffered defeat in the Greco-Turkish War in 1922, the club was transferred to the Athenian suburb of Nea Smyrni in Greece.
The basketball department Panionios BC, began participation in the Greek League starting in the year 1929, and finished in second place in the league that year. Panionios BC finished in third place in the league the next year.
Panionios BC has competed in the top Greek basketball league, the Greek League, in consecutive years since the year 1982. In 1987, Panionios played in the championship finals series of the Greek League, losing out to Aris Thessaloniki and their two Greek basketball legends Nick Galis and Panagiotis Giannakis (Giannakis would later go on to play for Panionios). In 1991, led by Fanis Christodoulou the team won the Greek Cup championship by defeating PAOK Thessaloniki by a score of 73-70. Panionios also played in the championship game of the Greek Cup in both 1977 and 1995.
The club finished in 3rd place in the Greek League in the 1995-96 season under head coach Dušan Ivković and thus qualified to the Euroleague for the 1996-97 season. In the Euroleague 1996-97 season, the team was coached by Efthimis Kioumourtzoglou.
In the Greek League 2007-08 season, Panionios, led by Ivan Zoroski, Ioannis Kalampokis, and charismatic head coach Nenad Marković finished in 3rd place. They came back from an 0-2 deficit in the deciding best-of-five series against Maroussi and won the series 3-2, which secured the team a place in the Euroleague competition for the Euroleague 2008-09 season. This marked the club's first Euroleague appearance in more than a decade.[2]
Panionios plays most of its domestic Greek League home matches at Nea Smyrni Indoor Hall, a small arena owned by the municipality with a capacity of 2,000. They have also played home games at Glyfada Indoor Hall, which has a capacity of 4,500, and have also often played home games at the Hellinikon Olympic Arena, which has a capacity of 15,000.[3] The municipality of Nea Smyrni has also promised to build the club a new modern-style arena on top of the old Nea Smyrni Indoor Hall.
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Roster |
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| Pos. | Starter | Bench | Bench | Reserve | Inactive |
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| C | Alex Stepheson | Zisis Sarikopoulos | Vassilis Kavvadas | ||
| PF | Stevan Nađfeji | Nikos Barlos | Michael Paragyios | ||
| SF | Vladimir Janković | Giannis Athanasoulas | Andreas Kanonidis | ||
| SG | Jon Diebler | Marios Batis | Stelios Ioannou | ||
| PG | Billy Keys | Vasilis Xanthopoulos |
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