European Basketball Success by Nation

Greece dominates with 27 Final Four appearances and 10 titles, nearly double Spain’s performance

TidyTuesday

2025

Analyzing EuroLeague basketball success across nations using faceted bar charts. Greece leads with 27 Final Four appearances and a 37% championship conversion rate.

Published

October 5, 2025

Figure 1: Bar chart comparing EuroLeague basketball success by country. Greece leads with 27 Final Four appearances and 10 titles, followed by Spain (12 appearances, 6 titles) and Turkey (12 appearances, 4 titles). Seven other countries have 1-4 Final Four appearances each. Greece’s 37% title conversion rate is noted.

Steps to Create this Graphic

1. Load Packages & Setup

Show code

```{r}
#| label: load
#| warning: false
#| message: false
#| results: "hide"

## 1. LOAD PACKAGES & SETUP ----
suppressPackageStartupMessages({
if (!require("pacman")) install.packages("pacman")
pacman::p_load(
  tidyverse,   # Easily Install and Load the 'Tidyverse'
  ggtext,      # Improved Text Rendering Support for 'ggplot2'
  showtext,    # Using Fonts More Easily in R Graphs
  janitor,     # Simple Tools for Examining and Cleaning Dirty Data
  scales,      # Scale Functions for Visualization
  glue,        # Interpreted String Literals
  tidytext     # Text Mining using 'dplyr', 'ggplot2', and Other Tidy Tools 
  )})

### |- figure size ----
camcorder::gg_record(
  dir    = here::here("temp_plots"),
  device = "png",
  width  = 8,
  height = 6,
  units  = "in",
  dpi    = 320
)

# Source utility functions
suppressMessages(source(here::here("R/utils/fonts.R")))
source(here::here("R/utils/social_icons.R"))
source(here::here("R/utils/image_utils.R"))
source(here::here("R/themes/base_theme.R"))
```

2. Read in the Data

Show code

```{r}
#| label: read
#| include: true
#| eval: true
#| warning: false

tt <- tidytuesdayR::tt_load(2025, week = 40)

euroleague_basketball <- tt$euroleague_basketball |> clean_names()

tidytuesdayR::readme(tt)
rm(tt)
```

3. Examine the Data

Show code

```{r}
#| label: examine
#| include: true
#| eval: true
#| results: 'hide'
#| warning: false

glimpse(euroleague_basketball)
```

4. Tidy Data

Show code

```{r}
#| label: tidy
#| warning: false

teams_clean <- euroleague_basketball |>
  mutate(
    across(
      c(
        team, home_city, arena, country, last_season,
        years_of_final_four_appearances, years_of_titles_won
      ),
      \(x) if_else(is.na(x), NA_character_, str_squish(x))
    ),
    capacity_num = parse_number(capacity),
    last_season_num = parse_number(last_season),
    final_four_appearances = as.integer(final_four_appearances),
    titles_won = as.integer(titles_won)
  )

# Country aggregation
country_summary <- teams_clean |>
  summarise(
    n_teams = n(),
    tot_titles = sum(titles_won, na.rm = TRUE),
    tot_ff = sum(final_four_appearances, na.rm = TRUE),
    .by = country
  )

# Long df
country_long <- country_summary |>
  filter(tot_ff > 0 | tot_titles > 0) |> # Only show countries with achievements
  mutate(
    # Highlight only Greece 
    highlight = country == "Greece",
    `Final Four apps` = tot_ff,
    Titles = tot_titles
  ) |>
  select(country, highlight, `Final Four apps`, Titles) |>
  pivot_longer(
    cols = c(`Final Four apps`, Titles),
    names_to = "metric",
    values_to = "value"
  ) |>
  mutate(
    country_ordered = reorder_within(country, value, metric)
  )

# Greece's stats
greece_stats <- country_summary |>
  filter(country == "Greece")
```

5. Visualization Parameters

Show code

```{r}
#| label: params
#| include: true
#| warning: false

### |-  plot aesthetics ----
# Get basic theme colors
colors <- get_theme_colors(
  palette = c("TRUE" = "#0066CC", "FALSE" = "gray70")
)

### |- titles and caption ----
title_text <- str_glue("European Basketball Success by Nation")

subtitle_text <- str_glue(
  "Greece dominates with 27 Final Four appearances and 10 titles, nearly double Spain's performance<br>",
  "Shows only countries with Final Four appearances or titles<br>"
)

caption_text <- create_social_caption(
  tt_year = 2025,
  tt_week = 40,
  source_text = "EuroLeague Basketball via Wikipedia"
)

### |-  fonts ----
setup_fonts()
fonts <- get_font_families()

### |-  plot theme ----
# Start with base theme
base_theme <- create_base_theme(colors)

# Add weekly-specific theme elements
weekly_theme <- extend_weekly_theme(
  base_theme,
  theme(
    # Text styling
    plot.title = element_text(face = "bold", family = fonts$title, size = rel(1.4), color = colors$title, margin = margin(b = 10)),
    plot.subtitle = element_text(family = fonts$subtitle, lineheight = 1.2, color = colors$subtitle, size = rel(0.9), margin = margin(b = 20)),

    ## Grid
    panel.grid.major.y = element_blank(),
    panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
    panel.grid.major.x = element_line(color = "gray90", linewidth = 0.3),
    
    # Axes
    axis.title = element_text(size = rel(0.9), color = "gray30"),
    axis.text = element_text(color = "gray30"),
    axis.text.y = element_text(size = rel(0.95)),
    axis.ticks = element_blank(),
    
    # Facets
    strip.background = element_rect(fill = "gray95", color = NA),
    strip.text = element_text(
        face = "bold", 
        color = "gray20", 
        size = rel(1),
        margin = margin(t = 8, b = 8)
    ),
    panel.spacing = unit(2, "lines"),
    
    # Legend elements
    legend.position = "plot",
    legend.title = element_text(family = fonts$tsubtitle, color = colors$text, size = rel(0.8), face = "bold"),
    legend.text = element_text(family = fonts$tsubtitle, color = colors$text, size = rel(0.7)),
    legend.margin = margin(t = 15),

    # Plot margin
    plot.margin = margin(20, 20, 20, 20)
  )
)

# Set theme
theme_set(weekly_theme)
```

6. Plot

Show code

```{r}
#| label: plot
#| warning: false

### |- final plot ----
p <- ggplot(country_long, aes(x = value, y = country_ordered)) +
  # Geoms
  geom_col(
    aes(fill = highlight, alpha = highlight),
    width = 0.65
  ) +
  geom_text(
    aes(
      label = if_else(value > 0, as.character(value), ""),
      color = highlight
    ),
    hjust = -0.3,
    size = 3.3,
    fontface = "bold"
  ) +
  geom_text(
    data = tibble(
      metric = "Final Four apps",
      y_pos = 7.8,
      x_pos = 1,
      label = "Greece: 37% conversion rate\n(10 titles from 27 Final Four apps)"
    ),
    aes(x = x_pos, y = y_pos, label = label),
    hjust = 0,
    vjust = 1,
    size = 2.8,
    color = colors$palette[1],
    fontface = "italic",
    lineheight = 0.9,
    inherit.aes = FALSE
  ) +
  # Scales
  scale_y_reordered(expand = expansion(mult = c(0, 0.12))) +
  scale_x_continuous(
    expand = expansion(mult = c(0, 0.18)),
    breaks = pretty_breaks(n = 4)
  ) +
  scale_fill_manual(
    values = colors$palette,
    guide = "none"
  ) +
  scale_alpha_manual(
    values = c("TRUE" = 1, "FALSE" = 0.65),
    guide = "none"
  ) +
  scale_color_manual(
    values = c("TRUE" = "gray20", "FALSE" = "gray50"),
    guide = "none"
  ) +
  # Labs
  labs(
    title = title_text,
    subtitle = subtitle_text,
    caption = caption_text,
    x = NULL,
    y = NULL,
  ) +
  # Facets
  facet_wrap(~metric, nrow = 1, scales = "free") +
  # Theme
  theme(
    plot.title = element_text(
      size = rel(1.8),
      family = fonts$title,
      face = "bold",
      color = colors$title,
      lineheight = 1.1,
      margin = margin(t = 5, b = 5)
    ),
    plot.subtitle = element_markdown(
      size = rel(0.75),
      family = fonts$subtitle,
      color = alpha(colors$subtitle, 0.9),
      lineheight = 1.2,
      margin = margin(t = 5, b = 10)
    ),
    plot.caption = element_markdown(
      size = rel(0.55),
      family = fonts$caption,
      color = colors$caption,
      hjust = 0.5,
      margin = margin(t = 10)
    )
  )
```

7. Save

Show code

```{r}
#| label: save
#| warning: false

### |-  plot image ----  
save_plot(
  plot = p, 
  type = "tidytuesday", 
  year = 2025, 
  week = 40, 
  width  = 8,
  height = 6
  )
```

8. Session Info

Expand for Session Info

R version 4.4.1 (2024-06-14 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64
Running under: Windows 11 x64 (build 22631)

Matrix products: default


locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.utf8 
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.utf8   
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.utf8
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                          
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.utf8    

time zone: America/New_York
tzcode source: internal

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices datasets  utils     methods   base     

other attached packages:
 [1] here_1.0.1      tidytext_0.4.2  glue_1.8.0      scales_1.3.0   
 [5] janitor_2.2.0   showtext_0.9-7  showtextdb_3.0  sysfonts_0.8.9 
 [9] ggtext_0.1.2    lubridate_1.9.3 forcats_1.0.0   stringr_1.5.1  
[13] dplyr_1.1.4     purrr_1.0.2     readr_2.1.5     tidyr_1.3.1    
[17] tibble_3.2.1    ggplot2_3.5.1   tidyverse_2.0.0 pacman_0.5.1   

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] gtable_0.3.6       httr2_1.0.6        xfun_0.49          htmlwidgets_1.6.4 
 [5] gh_1.4.1           lattice_0.22-6     tzdb_0.5.0         vctrs_0.6.5       
 [9] tools_4.4.0        generics_0.1.3     parallel_4.4.0     curl_6.0.0        
[13] gifski_1.32.0-1    fansi_1.0.6        janeaustenr_1.0.0  pkgconfig_2.0.3   
[17] tokenizers_0.3.0   Matrix_1.7-0       lifecycle_1.0.4    farver_2.1.2      
[21] compiler_4.4.0     textshaping_0.4.0  munsell_0.5.1      codetools_0.2-20  
[25] snakecase_0.11.1   htmltools_0.5.8.1  SnowballC_0.7.1    yaml_2.3.10       
[29] crayon_1.5.3       pillar_1.9.0       camcorder_0.1.0    magick_2.8.5      
[33] commonmark_1.9.2   tidyselect_1.2.1   digest_0.6.37      stringi_1.8.4     
[37] rsvg_2.6.1         rprojroot_2.0.4    fastmap_1.2.0      grid_4.4.0        
[41] colorspace_2.1-1   cli_3.6.4          magrittr_2.0.3     utf8_1.2.4        
[45] withr_3.0.2        rappdirs_0.3.3     bit64_4.5.2        timechange_0.3.0  
[49] tidytuesdayR_1.1.2 rmarkdown_2.29     gitcreds_0.1.2     bit_4.5.0         
[53] ragg_1.3.3         hms_1.1.3          evaluate_1.0.1     knitr_1.49        
[57] markdown_1.13      rlang_1.1.6        gridtext_0.1.5     Rcpp_1.0.13-1     
[61] xml2_1.3.6         renv_1.0.3         vroom_1.6.5        svglite_2.1.3     
[65] rstudioapi_0.17.1  jsonlite_1.8.9     R6_2.5.1           systemfonts_1.1.0

9. GitHub Repository

Expand for GitHub Repo

The complete code for this analysis is available in tt_2025_40.qmd.

For the full repository, click here.

10. References

Expand for References

Data Sources:

TidyTuesday 2025 Week 40: [EuroLeague Basketball](https://github.com/rfordatascience/tidytuesday/blob/main/data/2025/2025-10-07