Eurobits: Kristi Toliver to Ekaterinburg; SuperCopa in Spain

Turkey

According to Anil Yilmaz over at Jwbasketball.org, Galatasaray is no longer thinking of acquiring Penny Taylor after picking up Shavonte Zellous fell through.  Gala is looking for a player who is both young and low-cost.

Poland

Rybnik signed American guard Leah Metcalf.  She joins Drey Mingo and Angelica Henry.  Rybnik blew a 13-point lead to Artego Bydgosczc last week and the 31-year old North Carolina graduate has played in Poland, Russia and Sweden.

It didn't help Rynbik as they lost 76-47 to CCC Polkowice.  The second set of games has been played in the Polish league.  The top three players in assists in the BLK are Americans - Julia McBride (Artega Bydg), Courtney Vandersloot (Wisla Can-Pack) and Sharnee Zoll (Gorzow).

The league table is below.  Since the most frustrating thing about league tables is that they don't show which American players are on what team...I fixed that!  Top four teams in the Polish league go to the playoffs!

Spain

The SuperCopa is an preseason game held between the two finalists of Liga Femenina from the previous season.  Perfumerias defeated Rivas Ecopolis 87-52 to take their fifth straight "Super Cup".  Rivas is a very different team this year, with many of their best players raided by the Turkish league and starting a very young roster. 

Perfumerias shot 56 percent compared to just 27 percent from Rivas.  They flattened Rivas under the boards 50-22 in a game where Rivas never had the lead.  Angel Robinson led all players with 21 points and eight rebounds for the winners, and Shay Murphy had 10 points and six rebounds.  Angela Salvadores led Rivas with 15, and Bri Kulas out of Missouri scored nine points, all by 3-pointers.

VCU graduate Robyn Parks signed with Gran Canaria.  This is her very first year overseas.  Parks scored 21.7 ppg last season for VCU and was on the All-Atlantic 10 first team.

Spain's regular season begins tomorrow with a full slate of games.

Russia

Kristi Toliver just signed with Russian team UMMC Ekaterinburg.  Ekat is a real powerhouse and Euroleague title contender, and Toliver - who has a Slovakian passport by the way - will be on the same team as Sandrine Gruda, Deanna Nolan, Candace Parker, Kristi Toliver and Alba Torrens.

Euroleague

It looks like Asjha Jones will be replacing Crystal Langhorne at Good Angels Kosice.  According to lovewomensbasketball.com, Langhorne might be having some kind of surgery this year that will sideline her for the entire off-season.

Around Europe

Israeli league team Elitzur Ramla signed an entire squad of Americans - Amanda Houts, Natasha Howard and Danielle McCray.  Howard (Fever) and McCray (Sun) both played in the WNBA last year.

The inaugural games of the Women's British Basketball League (WBBL) were played last weekend.  Let's hope that the WBBL has all the success in the world.