An eye on Basketball Champions League: Who will join FIBA Europe Cup Round of 16?

MUNICH (FIBA Europe Cup/Basketball Champions League) – The outline of the FIBA Europe Cup Round of 16 is slowly taking shape, but there are more questions than answers heading into the final week of action in the Second Round.

At the same time as the fate of eight tickets to the next phase of the competition will be decided by FIBA Europe Cup teams, crucial battles will also be taking place in the Basketball Champions League for the remaining places in the Round of 16 next week.

While the top teams from the Regular Season of the Basketball Champions League will continue their campaigns in the Play-Offs, eight teams in the tier below will switch competitions and join the FIBA Europe Cup knock-out stages.

Among the candidates for the merger are last year’s FIBA Europe Cup champions Fraport Skyliners, who might have a chance to defend their title after all, and runners-up Varese, as well as many other big names in European basketball.

From the 40 teams involved in the Basketball Champions League Regular Season, divided into five groups of eight teams each, a total of 24 will advance to the Elimination Round.

The five group winners and three best-ranked second-placed teams will advance directly to the second stage of the Play-Offs, while the remaining 16 will face each other in eight pairings in a home-and-away format for a chance to join the top-ranked teams.

Meanwhile, the next eight placed teams (the worst-ranked fifth-placed team, all five sixth-placed sides and the two best-ranked seventh-placed clubs) will continue in the FIBA Europe Cup.

There isn’t much clarity in any of the five Basketball Champions League groups, with 16 different clubs holding at least mathematical possibilities of being involved in the transfer, but only one of them, Proximus Spirou, have it locked in.

Group A

In Group A, the game between Fraport Skyliners (6-7) and Ironi Nahariya (5-8) will decide the final standings in the group, with the winner of the contest claiming fifth place and the loser finishing sixth.

Group B

Teams currently placed fourth to seventh in Group B — CSM CSU Oradea, Avtodor Saratov, Kataja Basket and Maccabi Rand Media — all have identical 6-7 records and will, in one shape or another, continue their international campaigns. While the fourth-placed and likely the fifth-placed team are to stay in the Basketball Champions League, at least two teams from this quartet will transfer to the FIBA Europe Cup.

Group C

There are three candidates to join the competition in Group C, but the only way for fifth-placed PAOK (6-7) not to stay in the Basketball Champions League would be to become the worst-ranked fifth-placed team, as they cannot be passed in the standings.

The tussle for sixth place between Muratbey Usak Sportif and Varese, both 4-9, is more real. Usak have the head-to-head tie-breaker, but the Italian club could overtake them with a win against EWE Baskets if their Turkish opponents fall to group leaders ASVEL.

As we already mentioned, the sixth-placed team will earn direct qualification, while the seventh-placed side will have to count on their record and point differential in comparison to other seventh-placed teams.

Group D

In Group D, Telenet Oostende and Cibona, who both have 5-8 marks, will be involved in a head-to-head match-up to determine the outcome of the fifth and sixth place in the standings. The Belgian side won the first meeting by 12 points, but that will not be a factor, with the winner claiming the higher position in the group table.  

Mega Leks (4-9) can also qualify as one of the two best seventh-placed teams, but it could prove tough to accomplish without a victory against Iberostar Tenerife or blowout losses for their opponents in other groups in the last week of action.

Group E

There won’t be any vertical movement in the Group E standings for fifth-placed Dinamo Sassari (6-7), sixth-placed Proximus Spirou (5-8) and seventh-placed Stelmet Zielona Gora (4-9), but all of them could, in theory, switch competitions.

The Belgians are locked in sixth place, which guarantees them passage to the FIBA Europe Cup, while the future of Dinamo and Stelmet will depend on their records and point differential in comparison to other fifth-placed and seventh-placed teams respectively.

FIBA