By Stefanos Tatsios / info@eurohoops.net
Sarunas Jasikevicius’s team shocked Olympiacos in the playoffs by stealing the qualification for the Final Four in Belgrade, where they are considered – not without reason – the big outsiders for the championship.
Of course, Zalgiris Kaunas haven’t been the only surprise in the history of the EuroLeague by taking part in the Final Four, since we’ve seen this fairytale unfolding in front of our eyes many times in the past and, without a doubt, basketball fans love when this happens since nobody likes… routine.
Eurohoops presents the teams that got into the EuroLeague Final Four as Cinderellas in the modern era of the competition (2002-2017), and their accomplishments in the big appointment of Europe’s top club competition.
Panathinaikos 2002: The epic win in Bologna with Bodiroga the MVP.
In 2002 in the EuroLeague, Panathinaikos were coming off a lost final from 2001 to Maccabi Tel Aviv in Paris and their goal was to at least get into the Final Four.
Zeljko Obradovic had an excellent team with Bodiroga, Alvertis, Kutluay and Middleton. Of course, they weren’t as strong as they had been in previous years, but they were still a strong EuroLeague team.
What they did in the Final Four: Panathinaikos’s presence in the Final Four in Bologna is considered by many one of Zeljko Obradovic‘s top coaching performances, since he won the trophy as the ultimate outsider.
To begin with, in the semifinal against Maccabi, Dejan Bodiroga’s feats (26 points, 9 rebounds) and Middleton’s excellent performance (15 points, 5 rebounds) were enough for Panathinaikos to advance to the final. There, however, the opponent was going to be Ettore Messina and Manu Ginobili’s Kinder Bologna, playing on their home court as the favorites to win the EuroLeague from the start of that season.
In the first half, the Italians had the lead (48-40), but in the second Bodiroga (21 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists), Kutluay (22 points, 5 rebounds) and Lazaros Papadopoulos (12 points, 5 rebounds) put their signatures on an historic triumph. The Greens played excellent offense, tightened up their defense and… shocked the home team and the Final Four organizers by lifting the trophy with an 89-82 win in Bologna!
Tau Ceramica 2005: They shocked CSKA, but didn’t get to lift the trophy
Tau Ceramica – currently Baskonia – are one of the most traditional forces in European basketball in the last 20 years and they have made history in the EuroLeague. The only time they got close to the European champions’ throne was in the 2005 Final Four in Moscow.
Dusko Ivanovic had created an amazing team with excellent players such as Splitter, Calderon, Macijauskas, Scola, Prigioni and Hansen, that was efficient and played beautiful basketball.
What they did in the Final Four: The 2005 semifinal between CSKA Moscow and Tau in Russia was, if not the best, then one of the greatest semifinals that have ever taken place in the Final Four. Dusan Ivkovic’s home team were the undisputed favorites to get the qualification, as they had a multitude of stars like Papaloukas, Holden, Brown, Dikoudis and Andersen, plus they were playing at home.
But the amazing Basques were unstoppable on the court and with Macijauskas (23 points, 3 assists, 3 rebounds) and Calderon (13 points), they played amazing defense and managed to pull off a miracle by beating CSKA 85-78 and got the qualification for the final.
There, however, they showed that, apart from lacking experience in finals, they were also tired, and they were defeated fair and square by Sarunas Jasikevicius’s (MVP) Maccabi Tel Aviv (back-to-back wins) by 90-78, missing the opportunity to win the EuroLeague for the first time in their history.
Partizan Belgrade 2010: They got close to the miracle of the final, but… Childress got in the way.
It was the biggest surprise of the last decade in the Final Four, without a doubt. At a time when teams’ budgets were very high, Dusko Vujosevic’s Partizan Belgrade went all the way to the Final Four in Paris with a tight-knit group that played excellent defense and had talented players in offense.
Let’s not forget that that’s where the best center in the EuroLeague today, Jan Vesely, started his career in the ‘3’ position (!), while McCalebb, Kecman and Maric were his teammates.
What they did in the Final Four: In the semifinal in Paris, the Serbs had to face the most impressive Olympiacos team of the previous years, based on their roster, a team that – together with Barcelona – were the favorites to win the EuroLeague. In Panagiotis Giannakis’s Reds, the names of Papaloukas, Childress, Kleiza, Teodosic, Bourousis, Vujcic, Beverley and Schortsanitis dominated.
The Piraeus team, despite being the big favorites, saw an inexperienced Partizan team showing up in the semifinal with an amazing squad, going toe-to-toe with them. As a result, the game went into overtime thanks to Chidress’s follow-up dunk in the final seconds of the game. In the extra five minutes, coach Vujosevic’s players paid a price for their fatigue and Bourousis’s offensive rebounds, and were knocked out by suffering a bitter 83-80 defeat.
In the end, the Serbs said goodbye to their last Final Four to this day, with a close 90-88 loss to CSKA Moscow in the third place playoff, finishing in fourth place.
Olympiacos 2012: The upset and the red trophy of the century!
What can one say about 2012’s Olympiacos team? It was the biggest ever upset in the Final Four and the greatest outsider team that ever won the EuroLeague, with Dusan Ivkovic on the bench.
In the 2011-2012 season, the Reds were a completely changed team, focusing more on the youth element of the roster and with Vassilis Spanoulis the sole leader. Of course, the Greek core (Printezis, Papanikolaou, Mantzaris, Sloukas, Katsivelis) had already made the difference and the Americans (Hines, Dorsey, Law) helped whenever the team needed it, and, in the end, this… gang made history in the Final Four in Istanbul.
What they did in the Final Four: The first “victim” of Dusan Ivkovic’s players in the semifinal in Istanbul was Xavi Pascual and Juan Carlos Navarro’s Barcelona. There, Duda’s team played a furious defense, they had Spanoulis (21 points, 6 assists), Printezis (14 points, 4 rebounds) and Papanikolaou (9 points, 4 rebounds) on an excellent night and got a 68-64 win and the qualification for the big final.
In the final, the Reds were going up against the big favorites for winning the EuroLeague that season, CSKA Moscow, with Shved, Teodosic, Siskauskas, and Kirilenko in the squad. By the 29th minute, it looked like everything was over, as the Russians had a 19-point lead (53-34) and their arms around the trophy.
But with an unbelievable upset, Olympiacos made history in European basketball. With a 28-8 run, conceding just 8 points in 11 minutes, Dusan Ivkovic’s players got the win (62-61) and the trophy in crunch time thanks to Georgios Printezis’s unforgettable and unusual hook shot – nicknamed “petahtari” in Greek – following Spanoulis’s assist!
This basket changed the history of Olympiacos and the EuroLeague that season because, since then, every outsider that gets into the Final Four believes they can make the upset in the end.
Maccabi Tel Aviv 2014: They “took out” CSKA and Real and got their 6th trophy in Milan!
Surprises in the EuroLeague, in terms of the winners, were consecutive for a period of three years, since after Olympiacos‘s back-to-back wins (2012-13), it was Maccabi Tel Aviv‘s turn to stun the world of European basketball.
David Blatt’s team had a steady rotation of players (Pnini, Ohayon, Blu, Hickman, Ingles), but the difference in the 2014 Final Four in Milan was made by the two Americans, Tyrese Rice and Alex Tyus. Of course, Sofoklis Schortsanitis played his part in Maccabi’s miracle, while – let us remind you – in order for the the Israeli team to qualify for the big appointment in the Italian city, they had to knock out that city’s pride, Olimpia Milan, who of course had the home court advantage.
What they did in the Final Four: Maccabi had a very difficult mission as an outsider in the semifinal of the competition, since they came up against the wall of Ettore Messina’s CSKA Moscow. The Russians even had a 15-point lead, but David Blatt’s team turned the game around and, thanks to Khryapa’s turnover in the final seconds, they got a 68-67 win – with Rice’s lay-up on the counter – and the qualification for the final of the EuroLeague, after 2011.
There, they were going up against Real Madrid and Bourousis, Sergio Rodriguez, Llull and Rudy Fernandez, who had qualified for the final for the second season in a row and wanted the trophy. Rice (26 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists) and Hickman (18 points) were “firing” from the perimeter, while Tyus (12 points, 11 rebounds) was having a ball in the paint, and Maccabi won their 6th EuroLeague trophy comfortably in overtime with a 98-86 victory, making history as yet another… successful outsider in the Final Four.
Lokomotiv Kuban 2016: NBA-level basketball, but they crashed into CSKA‘s train
In the 2015-16 season, Georgios Bartzokas’s Lokomotiv Kuban played perhaps the most spectacular basketball a EuroLeague team has played in recent years.
The Russians were inexperienced in the EuroLeague, but they had an amazing roster (Delaney, Singleton, Randolph, Janning, Claver, Draper, Broekhoff) and put up awesome offensive performances in most games, which gave them the ticket for the first Final Four in their history, in Berlin in 2016.
What they did in the Final Four: The semifinal in Berlin was a challenge in itself for Georgios Bartzokas’s players, as their opponent in that “civil war” was Dimitris Itoudis’s CSKA Moscow. The Army Team’s players, with De Colo (30 points in 11-for-18 shots) being the best, looked unstoppable and ready to return to the top of Europe. The excellent Delaney (26 points, 4 assists) was not enough for Kuban, who were fairly beaten by 88-81.
In the third place playoff, Lokomotiv were fresher and in a better mood than Baskonia (who were knocked out by Fenerbahce) and with Delaney once again on a big night (21 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals) they got an 85-75 win and said goodbye to their first and only EuroLeague Final Four, by finishing in 3rd place.