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P/SUNNY
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s private disco featured not only aspiring showgirls performing striptease acts as sexy nuns and nurses, but one woman dressed up as President Barack Obama and a prominent Milan prosecutor whom the billionaire media mogul has accused of persecuting him, ...
Tonkatsu is comfort food, gourmand grub — not a gourmet delicacy. So what are those hearty, unpretentious deep-fried breaded pork cutlets doing in an elegant little bar-style restaurant above one of Ginza’s temples to high-end consumption? Katsuzen has come a long way from its ...
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
It is a tricky deal being an authorized biographer. Charles Moore’s big advantage over those who have previously tackled Margaret Thatcher is that he has been provided with material denied to them. Of the arrangement that he was offered by his subject, he writes: ...
Unbelievable energy. Splendid self confidence. Never-wavering faith in his abilities or his teammates. Those are ingredients to success for Draelon Burns, the Yokohama B-Corsairs’ super substitute. Burns buried a remarkable three buzzer-beating shots to close out the three final quarters, and his team needed ...
For Masashi Obuchi, an innate scoring sense and recognition of when and where to take shots served him well during his early days in the bj-league. Now, in his third season in the league, and second in an Osaka Evessa uniform, the veteran guard ...
Among the league’s four expansion teams, the Yokohama B-Corsairs have the best record (14-14) entering February. Coach Reggie Geary’s team had a significant accomplishment last weekend: a two-game sweep over the Akita Northern Happinets, one of the favorites to reach the Final Four. Defense ...
The Shiga Lakestars sit three games behind the first-place Ryukyu Golden Kings in the Western Conference standings, and the 17-9 club has demonstrated it has a legitimate shot at reaching the Final Four for the first time. Led by veteran Julius Ashby, Ray Nixon, ...
The largest crowd in bj-league history, 14,011, witnessed Sunday’s All-Star Game at Saitama Super Arena, and the positive energy from that experience carried over to players from throughout the league. As players and coaches prepared to leave Saitama on Sunday night to return to ...
Sharpshooter Cohey Aoki, a long-distance and free-throw shooting maestro, thrilled the masses during Sunday’s bj-league All-Star Game 3-Point Shooting Contest. Aoki, the longtime Tokyo Apache star who joined the Osaka Evessa after the two-time championship runnerup team folded, delivered a crowd-pleasing effort by dethroning ...
Four teams have no realistic shot at finishing the season as winners. The bj-league’s other 15 teams are in contention for a playoff spot and, possibly, a title. In fact, those 15 teams are within two games of .500 or better. Parity has been ...
What was the best offseason pickup by a bj-league team? You could make a strong case that Niigata Albirex BB center Chris Holm fits the above description. Holm, a rebounding machine, gives the Albirex their best post presence inside since Nick Davis manned the ...
It’s the time of the season for teams to add reinforcements as they begin jockeying for playoff positions. Exhibit A: The Miyazaki Shining Suns signed high-scoring forward O’Neal “Trey” Mims earlier this week. The 208-cm veteran averaged a team-high 19.3 points in 20 games ...
If this season’s first 20 games have proven anything, there’s no such thing as home sweet home for the Miyazaki Shining Suns. Nor is there a home-court advantage for coach Koto Toyama’s team. Miyazaki (9-11) has lost nine of 10 games at home. But ...
Considering their recent history, it’s no surprise the Takamatsu Five Arrows are piecing together a season that resembles a comedy of errors. But the fact that the team has made zero roster upgrades or additions in recent weeks may come as a shock to ...
Natalie Nakase of the Saitama Broncos grabbed the spotlight by becoming the first female head coach in bj-league history on Nov. 24. Nakase, a former UCLA player and women’s pro basketball coach in Germany, will add another chapter to her ongoing season of accomplishments ...
In the rugged Western Conference, the Kyoto Hannaryz face a rough road ahead in their quest to reach the Final Four for the first time in franchise history. The Hannaryz, however, have shown that they’re capable of long stretches of success. New coach Honoo ...