By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
The Basketball Champions League Final 8 and the 2020-21 season culminates today, Sunday. The championship game pitting Pinar Karsiyaka against defending champion Hereda San Pablo Burgos certainly highlights the schedule. Casademont Zaragoza and SIG Strasbourg will previously face off at Nizhny Novgorod hoping to capture third place.
Below, a few interesting facts of the two contests, including Burgos aiming to become the first team with two BCL titles, Dejan Kravic in view of his third, and more.
Championship game: Pinar Karsiyaka – Hereda San Pablo Burgos (18:00 CET)
● The last two BCL finals have seen a double-digit final margin while the first two finals had final margins of six points or fewer; the team leading at half-time always managed to win the game in the previous four BCL finals.
● Pinar Karsiyaka will try to become the first Turkish team winning the BCL title; Bandirma played the Final in 2016/17 but lost at the hands of Lenovo Tenerife.
● Pinar Karsiyaka will face their fourth different Spanish team in the BCL, after winning five of their previous seven such games; three of those wins happened this season – twice against RETAbet Bilbao in the regular season and once against Casademont Zaragoza in the semi-finals.
● San Pablo Burgos are the first team to reach the BCL final in consecutive seasons and will try to become the first club to win two titles in the BCL; the defending champions have won their five elimination games in the league, with four of those games by a margin of 11+ points.
● San Pablo Burgos will face their third different Turkish team in the BCL after playing twice against
Bandirma in 2019/20 (W1 L1) and twice against Darussafaka Tekfen in the current season (W2).
● Pinar Karsiyaka made 10+ 3-pointers in each of their last three BCL games, after making 10+ shots from behind the arc in only two of their previous 11 games this season; individually, Sek Henry scored 12 3-pointers in his last two games, at least the double of any player during this Final 8.
● San Pablo Burgos’ bench scored 55 points against AEK in the 2020 final, the most for a team in a BCL Final 8/Final 4 game; however, their bench players have failed to score 40+ points in each of their last six games.
● San Pablo Burgos have made more than eight 3-pointers only once in their eight playoffs games this season after making 10+ 3-pointers in each of their six games during the regular season; however, they made 17 3-pointers in the 2020 BCL final, the most for a team in a Final 8/Final 4 game.
● Tony Taylor (Pinar Karsiyaka, 617pts & 212ast) is one of the two players with 600+ points and 200+ assists in the BCL, alongside J’Covan Brown (745pts, 276ast); he already won the BCL, it was in 2019 with Virtus Bologna, where he finished as best assist provider of the final (5 assists).
● Amath M’Baye has scored on average 18.3 points in his four games against Spanish teams in the BCL, including 16 with Virtus Bologna against Lenovo Tenerife in the 2019 final; he needs 19 more points to become the outright best French point-scorer in the BCL (452, Lahou Konate, 470).
● San Pablo Burgos’ Vítor Benite has scored a total of 240 points in the BCL Playoffs, the most among all players in league history; Benite has scored in double digits in his last 13 appearances in the BCL, his longest scoring run in the league, and he is making 21 points per game in this season’s Final 8.
● San Pablo Burgos’ Dejan Kravic might become the first player to win three BCL titles, after being crowned champion with Virtus Bologna in 2018/19 and with San Pablo Burgos in 2019/20; he has grabbed a total of 16 rebounds in his two BCL Final appearances, the most of any player in title games, including 11 last year.
Third-place game: Casademont Zaragoza – SIG Strasbourg (15:00 CET)
● Casademont Zaragoza will play the 3rd place game for the second season in a row in the BCL after losing in 2019/20 at that stage against another French team, JDA Dijon (70-65). Strasbourg will be the second
French team to face Zaragoza in the BCL, after JDA Dijon (W2 L1).
● SIG Strasbourg could become the third different French team finishing a BCL season in the Top 3, after Monaco (3rd in 2017; 2nd in 2018) and JDA Dijon (3rd in 2020).
● Casademont Zaragoza have lost their most recent game (79-84 v Pinar Karsiyaka) but only once before have they lost consecutive games in the competition: it was in last season’s Final 8 when they lost in the semi-finals (75-99 v AEK) and then in the 3rd place game (65-70 v JDA Dijon).
● SIG Strasbourg have won their last five BCL games in which they have scored 80+ points and have lost their last five games in which they have scored fewer than 80 points in the competition.
● Casademont Zaragoza have scored 19.8 points per game after turnovers, the most of any team in the BCL 2020/21; they scored 26 points in that fashion in the semi-finals against Pinar Karsiyaka.
● SIG Strasbourg have grabbed 38.2% of the rebounds disputed in their offensive basket, the highest rebounding rate of any team in the BCL 2020/21; they have grabbed an average of 14.5 offensive rebounds per game, the most for any team with more than six games in the league this season.
● Rodrigo San Miguel will play his fourth medal game in BCL history and might become the first player to have a 1st place, a 2nd place and a 3rd place medal in the competition – he was a champion and a runner-up
with Lenovo Tenerife in 2016/17 and 2018/19, respectively.
● Nicolas Brussino has scored in double digits in his last six BCL games, his longest 10+ points scoring sequence in the league; he has combined for 13.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and 5.8 assists in his last four games with Casademont Zaragoza in the competition.
● Bonzie Colson has scored an average of 11 points per game in this BCL Final 8, after scoring 20.4 points per game in his previous eight appearances in the league with SIG Strasbourg; Colson has scored fewer
than 15 points in each of his last two games, as many times as in his previous 11 matches in the league.
● Brandon Jefferson has scored 11+ points in his last nine BCL appearances with SIG Strasbourg, after scoring in double digits in only one of his previous five games in the competition; Jefferson has scored 2+ shots from behind the arc in eight of his last nine games in the league and has made each of his last 27 free-throws.
Photo Credit: Basketball Champions League