By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Eurocup’s regular season ended and the competition is proven to be a very accurate portrait of the European basketball landscape. Here’s what we learned from the first 10 weeks of action.
The Gran Canaria paradox: How can a team be unbeaten in Eurocup (10-0), while having just a 5-6 record in its domestic league and being just 12th on the standings? It’s not such a hard question to answer, since Gran Canaria plays in one of the strongest domestic leagues in Europe, Liga Endesa. Aside from the possible bigger motive in the European games, this paradox also says much about the playing level of Eurocup’s regular season.
Partizan’s demise: For many years Partizan thrived in Euroleague, being always competitive and producing top quality talent for sale. The mediocre last season that ended up with the team forced to play in Eurocup, created more financial issues that were evident on the court. The result was missing the Last32. Yes, money can’t buy wins, but decent resources are needed in order to stay at the top level.
The Russians are coming: Four Russian teams played in Eurocup, all of them qualified to the Last32 and two of them finished on top of their group, Khimki and unbeaten Lokomotiv Kuban. Even Zenit St.Petersburg and Krasny Oktyabr can’t be underestimated as the country has the tradition, good enough local talent and money which can lure top foreign players.
The Germans not quite there yet: There’s Brose Baskets which has the know-how and there’s also Bonn, Oldenburg and Artland which failed to qualify to Last32. Despite the huge progress of the German league in every aspect, on the court German teams still have much to do in order to make the next step against opponents with a longer basketball tradition.
Euroleague qualifying round disaster: What ASVEL, Hapoel Jerusalem, Zielona Gora and VEF Riga have in common? They had the chance in the start of the season to play in Euroleague via the qualifying round, but ended up missing the Last32 of Eurocup. Things couldn’t have gone worse for those clubs, specially for the ambitious Hapoel which wants to challenge the dominance of Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel.