By Stefan Djordjevic / sdjordjevic@eurohoops.net
The Basketball Champions League is reaching the closure of its fifth campaign with one week of action left in the Round of 16.
Six of eight Final Tournament spots have been decided and throughout this and previous postseasons, a number of players set themselves apart with an impressive winning record, as well as performances.
Experience is a crucial factor when it comes to being successful in the postseason and it doesn’t come as a surprise that the youngest players on the list of winningest in BCL playoffs have 28 years of age with some going well over 30.
In fact, the leader on the all-time list of BCL playoff wins has been Rodrigo San Miguel with 15. He accumulated those wins with two teams – Tenerife and Zaragoza. Miguel was part of Tenerife’s road to the title in 2017 and also helped Zaragoza reach the Final Four last season.
Interestingly, the list consists of quite a few players currently playing for the reigning champions San Pablo Burgos, showing how much the experience meant for their success.
Vitor Benite sits at 12 wins while Thaddus McFadden follows with 11. AEK’s Linos Chrysikopoulos reached ten playoff victories but he won’t be able to improve his score much as the Greek team got eliminated.
Burgos‘ Dejan Kravic also logged ten so far as did Zaragoza’s Nicolas Brussino. Ferran Bassas is at the same mark but he hasn’t been in the competition this season, with his wins coming in Tenerife and Burgos jerseys.
The reigning champions’ backcourt duo of Benite and McFadden also reached a few milestones when it comes to points.
Benite has scored 198 points in the BCL playoffs so far, the most for any player ever in this phase of the competition. He surpassed Kevin Punter who tallied a total of 181 points.
McFadden follows at the fifth spot with 166 points but he will almost certainly jump to the third by the end of this season, as he trails by one point to Dusan Sakota (167) and five points to J’Covan Brown (171), neither of which compete in these playoffs.
The Georgian sharpshooter also tallied a total of 565 points in BCL which makes him the 9th scorer of all-time in the competition, being one point behind Pinar Karsiyaka’s Tony Taylor (566).
Photo Credit: Basketball Champions League