By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv officially updated the team status on Wednesday.
After defeating Wolves Twinsbet in Arena Samokov and improving to 1-1 in Group A of the BKT EuroCup Regular Season on Tuesday, the flight back to Israel will not have head coach Stefanos Dedas, and players Braian Angola, Marcus Foster, Ish Wainright, Bruno Caboclo, Ben Bentil, and Johnathan Motley due to the security situation, the team announced. Instead, they will remain in Sofia and rejoin their teammates in Belgrade for next week’s Round 3 contest versus Besiktas Fibabanka in the Aleksandar Nikolic Hall.
The remaining foreign players, Patrick Beverley and Joe Ragland, will make the flight to Israel via Larnaca along with the domestic portion of the squad later Wednesday.
Considering summer signings, the team based in Tel Aviv was quickly labeled as the favorite to win the second tier competition of Euroleague Basketball and earn a spot in the 2025-26 edition of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. The EuroCup Regular Season consists of 18 games through a double-legged round-robin schedule, lasting until February.
The top two seeds advance directly to the Quarterfinals and the teams placing between third and sixth move to the Eighthfinals. Both postseason stages will be contested in a single-elimination format. However, best-of-three series take over for the Semifinals and Finals.
Domestic action in Israel, including the Final of the Winner League Cup between Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv and Maccabi Ramat Gan originally scheduled to be held in Holon Toto Hall on Saturday, has been postponed.