By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
The Basketball Champions League was created by FIBA in its current form having in mind the idea that a European competition can help the growth of basketball in countries where the sport is not predominant.
That was the case in the regular season, with a total of 16 countries being represented, including Benfica from Portugal, two Polish teams in King Szczecin and Śląsk Wrocław, and also representatives of Bosnia, Latvia, and Belgium.
In the qualifiers, the representation was even more diverse with teams from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Sweden, Finland, Georgia, the UK, the Nederlands, Switzerland, and Slovakia.
That’s a total of 26 countries, including those who were part of the regular season.
However, entering the Round of 16, only nine countries are represented and seven of them are already established basketball powers, like Spain, Greece, Turkey, Germany, France, Lithuania, and Italy.
Even including the play-ins, Belgium and Israel were the other two countries with a chance to be part of the best 16 teams and missed it.
You can argue that nine different countries on 16 teams is not a bad number. Still, only two clubs, ERA Nymburk from the Chezh Republic and Falco-Vulcano Szombathely from Hungary are taking advantage of the chance the BCL gives them to shine on a continental stage.
This is the 9th season of a competition that was built to encourage the build-up of the sport, giving a platform for those who were left behind.
In the previous two seasons, only seven countries had teams in the Round of 16, and we have to go back to the 2021-22 season to find 11 different countries being represented.
You can decide if the glass is half full or not, but the clubs which are not coming from “basketball countries”, or those who had a tradition in the past and can’t live up to it now, must ramp up their game.
And yes, Spanish teams will probably continue to dominate with Greece, Italy, France, or Germany stealing the show depending on the season.
But with the 10th jubilee of the competition approaching, it’s time for other countries to take center stage, something that only Belgium did in the past with Telenet Antwerp Giants hosting and taking part in the Final Four.