By Stefan Djordjevic/ info@eurohoops.net
The hopes across the world to end basketball seasons in a ‘normal’ way have been put out and every competition has been searching for the best possible alternative to close the 2019-20 campaigns and avoid canceling the season.
In the Basketball Champions League’s case, it has been decided to complete the season with a Final Eight tournament in late September, early October.
The date of the tournament has been one of the main concerns for Iberostar Tenerife as the club is set to host the 2020 Spanish Super Cup which usually takes place early on in the season, in September. But BCL has been keeping close ties with the national competitions and has decided on setting a date that doesn’t interfere with their schedule (September 30 – October 4).
Tenerife president Felix Hernandez also noted that it would be much better if the season could be completed earlier in order to avoid overlap with the 2020-21 campaign and to keep the rosters as similar as possible.
Tenerife is one of the teams that hasn’t completed its Round of 16 series (tied at 1-1) as the competition got suspended before their deciding clash against Filou Oostende and they will first have to secure the spot in the Final Eight. The same goes for JDA Dijon and Nizhny Novgorod.
On the other hand, the host of the Final Eight is yet to be decided as well and San Pablo Burgos has been one of the teams with a clear intention to take that responsibility.
The club had the goal, before the season, to host the Final Four and this change of date and format didn’t change it: “Next year we will have to be competitive enough and the budget will be affected, but our hope was always to reach the Final Four and now we will seek the title with this new system. It will be a very attractive format and our challenge is to organize it at home,” club president Felix Sancho said.
Burgos has done the first part of the ‘race’, the squad advanced after overcoming Dinamo Sassari with 2-0 in the playoffs. And they’ve done in their debut season.
They will have the home crowd – which has been well-known for creating a great atmosphere – behind them if everything goes well through the summer. However, the club will still have to put effort into persuading the city officials which have been reluctant to host such a big event as their goal is also to organize the 2021 Spanish Super Cup.
Sancho also considers it would be a huge “economic and morale boost” for the city and its citizens which, he is convinced, will overcome the ongoing crisis.
Among their rivals in grabbing the hosting of the Final Eight are Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem – which is, in fact, Burgos’ first opponent – and Casademont Zaragoza.
Zaragoza has also been impressive in its debut season, reaching the quarterfinals after getting past Lietkabelis with 2-0. Even more so, they entered the playoffs as the first-placed team in Group D and is the case with ERA Nymburk, Hapoel Jerusalem and Turk Telekom, the Final Eight format makes their road ‘slightly’ difficult.
All those squads secured the first spot in their respective groups and therefore, got the home-court advantage which would also have benefited them in the quarterfinals. However, now that’s not an option.
Perhaps that could give those clubs an advantage as BCL ponders on the decisions who to give the hosting privilege to but from it that it’s the only criteria. If it were, Nymburk would be the clear winner with a league-best 12-2 record during the regular season.
Not to mention that all the teams suffer financially from changing the format as they would have at the very least hosted one game before the Final Four. However, finishing the season in any way is still beneficial for the teams as they receive a significant financial boost by FIBA for reaching the quarterfinals and beyond, up to one million euros going to the champion.
Photo Credit: Basketball Champions League