By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
The 8th gameday of Euroleague’s regular season is upon us and it’s about time to clear things out. Six teams have already qualified to Top16 (Real Madrid, Olympiacos, Lokomotiv Kuban, Fenerbahce/ Ulker, Barcelona, CSKA Moscow) and most of the ten tickets left will be decided on the seven games which will be played on Thursday and the five games of Friday.
It’s not easy to make any predictions at this point, something evident after all that happened in the previous 7 gamedays and everything is possible, even before we reach the Top16, where the real season starts.
Game of the week: CSKA Moscow – Fenerbahce/ Ulker
Once more the game of the week comes from the group which includes three teams which are contenders for the game in Milan on May! CSKA Moscow is starting to find itself with Kyle Hines being the glue of the team, like he was in Olympiacos. The Russians are hosting Fenerbahce and want revenge in cold and covered by snow Moscow.
Five weeks before, CSKA suffered in a 86-60 defeat in Istanbul. The team of coach Obradovic is coming from three defeats in the ten days (two in TBL and one in Euroleague) and the timing seems ideal for the hosts to react. This is also a personal challenge for Etore Messina against his nemesis Zeljko Obradovic.
There is a small advantage for CSKA because of the momentum and the home court, but we consider really difficult to see once more a game with a big points difference like it happened in the first encounter of the two teams, or last week in the game between Fener and Barcelona. We expect to be a hard fought contest, a real Top16 preview, as after all, the first and the third team in the standings will end up in the same Top16 group.
Honorable mention: Maccabi Tel Aviv – Lokomotiv Kuban
Lokomotin Kuban is proud for being the best newcomer in the modern era of Euroleague (6-1) and travels to Tel Aviv without any pressure to face Maccabi (5-2), the only team which has beaten the Russians so far in the league and did it on the road with an impressive 72-58 final score.
Since then, Maccabi is in the middle of a crisis. The team will probably be a part of Top16, but the Israelis is having their worst domestic league season in many years. They have a 5-4 record after losing to Hapoel Jerusalem, which includes Jotam Halperin, a player who coach Blatt didn’t want to sign and Lior Eliyahu whose contract wasn’t extended.
According to Israeli sources, this game may decide the fate of Blatt. In their first encounter, Lokomotiv’s offense was stopped, but without any pressure we expect a much better game by the Russians this time.
The survival: Panathinaikos – Crvena Zvezda
Panathinaikos is still searching for his real self (3-4) and the Greens’ win in Belgrade in a game that was decided in overtime by absent this time Nikos Pappas, was one of the steps forward to this direction. Now the Greek champions need one more positive result over the Serbs (2-5) in order to seal their Top16 ticket.
Panathinaikos is the favorite, the game will be played in OAKA against team of lesser quality and experience. It has also to be noted that Panathinaikos lost only once to Crvena Zvezda back in 1970.
Big teams are ready to deliver in those kind of games and only the possibility of a bad offensive day (like the one against Lietuvos Rytas) combined with the anxiety of Top16 qualification can create problems to the hosts.
The question mark: Bayern Munich
The German powerhouse in the making, started with an impressive 3-1 record, but things changes quite quickly for the team of coach Pesic, which has to react after 3 straight defeats in order to qualify.
The Bavarians record is 3-4 and they have just one win advantage over Siena and Zielona Gora which play each other in Florence. The question is simple: How will Bayern react, considering the fact that their schedule until the end of the regular season is difficult? At home they have to win, but against unbeaten Olympiacos (18-0) this will be difficult, even after the punishment of the Reds (which probably creates more problems to Galatasaray).
Who will be left out: Probably both
Partizan and Budivelnyk will probably miss the Top16. However a defeat in the game between them means losing every hope of advancing. The winners will still have that Nanterre may commit suicide, specially if they are the Ukrainians who are traveling next week to Paris.
Of course, all this applies in the case of a Nanterre’s defeat by Barcelona. We can’t believe that the Catalans will lose an other game to the French champions. After all, their road defeat can be more than enough for a fairy tale qualification to Top16.