By Alex Molina / info@eurohoops.net
Casademont Zaragoza had made it to the quarterfinals of the Basketball Champions League and remained in the third position in the ACB league, just three victories away from topping the standings.
It’s a dream season for the Spanish club combining BCL and Liga Endesa’s success, which seems to have ended prematurely after the complete lockdown of leagues across Europe due to the coronavirus outbreak.
From less to more in Europe
The team’s trajectory in the BCL has been clearly upward, as there were many new additions that needed time to fit into the team’s system. Being part of a challenging Group D in BCL’s regular season, the beginning of the campaign sowed many doubts for the team, with a 4-4 record after the first 8 games.
Then at that moment, the team reacted and grabbed six consecutive victories and would eventually manage to keep the first place in the group, thus ensuring homecourt advantage for the next stage of the competition.
This season was Zaragoza’s second European experience, after 2013-2014 when the team participated in the 7DAYS EuroCup. Their role at that time was quite discreet since they were eliminated at the Top 32 with only 2 victories, which cannot be compared to the great results it produced this season.
Lietkabelis was the rival that brought luck to Zaragoza, who managed to grab respective victories in the first two games of this best-of-three series and grabbed a ticket to the BCL quarterfinals. The game in Lithuania was the last one the team played in BCL while waiting for the winner of the Iberostar Tenerife – Filou Oostende (1-1) pair.
Success in the domestic league
One of the main doubts that there was about Zaragoza’s European project was whether the team could bear playing two such demanding competitions as the Basketball Champions League and the ACB. Contrary to what happened in the BCL, the team has been very solid in the Spanish league, occupying the first positions in the standings early on in the season.
Upon the suspension of ACB, Zaragoza only had Barcelona and Real Madrid ahead in the standings and beat both in their previous meetings. They also managed to enter the Copa del Rey, but fell to Unicaja, host of the competition, in the quarterfinals.
Porfi Fisac in charge
All these great successes bear the signature of Fisac, who was entrusted with the mission of growing the project after getting the team to the semifinals of the league last season. The club was clear that he was the right person to do that and renewed his contract for two seasons last summer, thus showing their confidence in him and in his project.
Fisac, who has always defended that the team’s successes are a result of “work and sacrifice”, has taken the responsibility to combine results with continuing to train his players, since, as he declares “we are a club of growth and we have a course of where we want to go”.
One of the players with most projection in the club is 19-year-old Carlos Alocén, who joined Zaragoza on loan from Real Madrid. Fisac values his contribution but doesn’t like to pamper him because of his young age. “What Carlos achieves is because he has earned it. He has something special and can be very important. ”
“We have a goal and it’s 17 wins, I don’t want to end the season with more losses than victories.” These were Fisac’s statements back in January, and a few days before the end of March, the team now has 16 in Spain, so the objective was practically met.
No one knows how the season would have ended if it had not been cut prematurely by the coronavirus outbreak, but what is clear is that it looked like it was one of those that would be remembered for life.