Before October last year, I knew less than nothing about European basketball. I thought it was just skinny white guys shooting threes, big stiffs moving at a snail's pace in the paint, and crowds that looked and sounded more like they belonged on a football stadium terrace than in a basketball arena.

Well, over the 15 week run of my UKTV Slam basketball programme, I really came to appreciate Euroleague basketball. There are high flying athletes putting down huge dunks and swatting shots into the stands. There are plenty of guys whose names I recognise from college and the NBA (Trajan Langdon, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Tony Delk etc). The teamwork and ball movement of many teams is often a wonder to behold...and the action really can be fast and furious.

Anyway, having come to know a fair amount about many of these teams and their players, I was hyped about the prospect of going to see them play live at the Euroleague Final Four. Even better was the fact that it was taking place in Athens - home to perhaps the most passionate (and crazy) basketball fans on earth.

So here is my diary of Euroleague Final Four 2007, Athens.

Thursday 3rd May

5:00 am
I'm sitting in the lobby of the Acropol Hotel in Omonia Square, absolutely f**ked.
I've not slept all night, just endured a three and a half hour plane journey, and the eight Valium that got me through the flight are still very much in control of my higher brain functions.

James - the UKTV SLAM website editor - is, thank f**k, fully compus mentis...and managing to check us in.
He's on the eighth floor, I'm on the sixth. All good. I fall straight into bed as soon as I get into the suite and I'm out before my head even hits the pillow.

1:00 pm
Where am I? It takes me a good 15 seconds to remember where I am and how I got there...but it soon comes back to me.

After freshing up, James and I take the media shuttle bus to the Olympic complex and get our accreditation sorted.

First things first, the whole site was very impressive. It was interesting to see it all live in the flesh. Having worked as a journalist at ITN during the build up to the 2004 Athens Olympics, I remember writing story after story about how the site wasn't going to be ready on time, the stadium would not work, the transport infrastructure was going to be a shambles and all this sort of shit.

Well, in the end, the Greeks proved everyone wrong as it was all ready - and throughly impressive too.

Anyway, James and I located our seats in the media area (good seats - just 3 rows back and right next to where all the Panathinaikos fans would be) and generally loafted around the complex.

5:00 pm
Later that afternoon, the four semi finalists (CSKA Moscow, Panathinaikos, Unicaja and Tau Ceramica) were holding training sessions. James and I thought it would be cool to go and check one out.

So, we walk into the arena, and apart from the CSKA players (who are going at it HARD on the court) no one else is in there. After standing on the baseline, watching them train for about 30 seconds, last year's Final Four MVP, Theo Papaloukas, stops at half court and just stares at me. He didn't look at James...just me. Full on screw-boat.

"What the fuck is he looking at?" I ask James.

It was at that point that some huge Russian dude comes over and says in some full-on KGB accent

"This is closed training session"

I wasn't going to argue! Papaloukas probably thought we were spies for Tau Ceramica or something!

That night, we decided to go hang out at the players' hotel to see if we could get any gossip...and in the end, we spent the night getting wrecked in the hotel bar with the Euroleague Director of Communications Kirsten Haack. Kirsten is mad cool...but I was staggered that she was staying up drinking till nearly 3am given she was in the middle of the most important weekend of the year for her (and had to be up at 6am the next morning for an extremely busy day).

Now, let me tell you something about Greeks and drink....when you ask for a double vodka over here in England, you're lucky to get a quarter of a glass of spirit. Over there, the motherf**kers literally fill the glass three-quarters full with vodka before adding the smallest splash of Coke or Redbull or whatever. They do not fuck around when it comes to drinking. As a result, James got mashed very quickly...and we somehow ended up in one of the hotel rooms with a load of people from Yahoo! and various other media outlets. It was all extremely bizarre.

We eventually managed to find our way back to the hotel...just in time to get some kip before the day of the semi finals.