By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
With just one day left until the climax of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season, Joe Arlauckas has the inside scoop on the championship game in a special edition of The Crossover podcast that features interviews with two of Sunday’s would-be titlists, Cory Higgins of CSKA Moscow and Adrien Moerman of Anadolu Efes Istanbul.
Joe sat down with both finalists on Saturday morning after their teams aced their semifinals on Friday by different means. Moerman and Efes blew away mighty Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul 73-92 in the first semifinal, which came as something of a surprise for a team with quite limited Final Four experience. He talks about what went into the historic victory that put Efes in its first continental final and sized up his team’s opponent for the trophy.
“The identity of this team is we are very hungry,” Moerman tells The Crossover. “It doesn’t matter who is our opponent. We are here to play.”
Higgins and CSKA took the opposite route on Friday, rallying from 14 points behind in the second half to dethrone Real Madrid by a score of 95-90. Higgins talks about why this is a different CSKA than the team that lost its last two semifinals before Friday.
“This year, we’ve got to exorcize our demons and shut some of the doubters up,” Higgins says. “Hopefully we can get one more and really leave no doubt.”
In addition to his interviews with Sunday’s finalists, Arlauckas is joined by a couple of experts who know just what it takes to win a title of this stature, two-time EuroLeague champions Nikola Vujcic and Johnny Rogers, who discuss Friday’s semifinals and preview the upcoming championship game.
The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas is available on iTunes, Audioboom, Spotify, Deezer, RadioPublic, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, CastBox, Stitcher and other platforms.
Making its debut earlier this season, The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas has gone well beyond the playing court with each podcast to delve into the life experiences that have made his guests protagonists and legends of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
The Crossover has featured some of the greats of the competition, including Vassilis Spanoulis of Olympiacos Piraeus, Nick Calathes of Panathinaikos OPAP Athens and Kyle Hines of CSKA Moscow, coaches Zeljko Obradovic of Fenerbahce, Pablo Laso of Real Madrid and David Blatt of Olympiacos, and retired stars Nikola Vujcic of Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv and Robertas Javtokas of Zalgiris Kaunas, among others.
Source: EuroLeague