MIES (Switzerland) - Winning the Third-Place Game at the Season 1 Final Four, followed by the first 13 Regular Season games in Season 2, it felt like AS Monaco's record of 14 wins in a row was going to be there forever.
With the Basketball Champions League becoming more balanced and growing with each passing year, nobody expected a team to show up and win 15 games in a row in this competition, and yet, here Unicaja stand.
Unicaja are just one win away from completing a perfect 2024, a year in which they won the BCL, the FIBA Intercontinental Cup and the Spanish Supercup, while not losing a single game here.
The scariest part? They did it the Unicaja way.
Ibon's Plan
Since they won the Spanish Copa del Rey in 2023, there was a chant about "Ibon having a plan," Ibon being Ibon Navarro, Unicaja's head coach. It became a running joke ever since, and his masterplan is actually rather simple: win, but do it with so many weapons the opponent has no idea who to stop.
This season, Unicaja have a roster of 14 players who could beat you on any given day. In fact, it's always somebody else doing the damage. Don't believe us? Just watch.
Game #1 of the streak: 89-70 win over Tofas Bursa, Tyson Carter was the top scorer with 21 points. Followed by David Kravish's 16 against Cholet, Kendrick Perry's 15 against SIG Strasbourg, and Jonathan Barreiro's 17 against SIG in the reverse fixture.
Only in the fifth game of the streak did we have the same name repeating, as it was Perry topping the charts with 19 against Tofas Bursa. Dylan Osetkowski had 18 against Cholet, then Perry led the way in Game 1 against Promitheas, waking up Tyler Kalinoski for 23 in Game 2 against the Greek team in the Quarter-Finals.
At the Final Four in Belgrade, Tyson Carter was key in the Semi-Final against UCAM Murcia, while Perry dominated the Final against La Laguna Tenerife to win the MVP of the Final Four award.
In the five wins this season, their leading scorers were, respectively, Ostekowski, Kravish, Kalinoski, Kalinoski and Carter.
Through 15 games, only in wins #13 and #14 was one player able to have back-to-back games as the top scorer, and it was Tyler Kalinoski with two hot shooting games, both against Aliaga Petkimspor.
That's the plan. You think you're good because you stopped Carter? LOL. You think you have a chance because Perry is not playing? Sure, just ask Filou Oostende how they felt on Tuesday night.
And this is just the scoring part of the plan, without the suffocating defense of Alberto Diaz, the vertical threats of Olek Balcerowski and Yankuba Sima, or clutchness of Kameron Taylor. You know who was the game winner for them in a close one against Tenerife in the Spanish League last weekend? Melvin Ejim, out of nowhere, with the game-clinching and-one play.
How to stop them?
This is the million euro question here, to find the flaw in the Plan. There is no simple answer and even if there was, we wouldn't give it to you. But we have a suggestion who to call.
When dissecting a streak like this, you need to go back in history to figure out what was wrong in their last defeat. To be fair, not a lot, as they scored 73 points on the road, spread the minutes through 11 guys, grabbed 15 offensive rebounds, and turned the ball over just 14 times. Sure, 14 is a big number, but it's not THAT BIG in a defeat.
But there was one thing that the other team took away from Unicaja. The Spaniards weren't able to shoot the ball from distance, taking just 19 three-pointers, way below their averages from last season (25.9 three-pointers attempted) and this season (26.5). They made just three of those, that's how closely contested every jumper was on the day of their last BCL defeat, back in December 2023.
Turns out, Ibon wasn't the only one with the Plan. The other guy had a plan and it worked to perfection.
You may have heard of him. He went on to do some special stuff later that season.
Quick notes from Tuesday's games
Unicaja played their 50th game in the BCL – they have won 74 percent of their total games in the competition (W37 L13), the second highest winning ratio behind only La Laguna Tenerife (75%, W108 D1 L35), amongst all teams with 50 or more games played in the BCL.
Unicaja have scored more than 90 points in three consecutive BCL games for the first time ever. They dished out 29 assists against Oostende, and have now four different games with 25 or more assists, at least twice more than any other team in the league this season.
Aliaga Petkimspor scored 90 points against King Szczecin, their highest scoring game in the BCL. Their 63 points allowed are also the fewest for them in a league fixture.
Michale Kyser (Hapoel Netanel Holon) blocked one shot against FIT/One Wurzburg Baskets and has now joined TaShawn Thomas at the top of the all-time list in the BCL history (73 blocks each).
Jaromir Bohacik (ERA Nymburk) has scored more than 10 points in each of his last four games in the BCL, his longest scoring sequence in the competition.
Vassilis Xanthopoulos (Peristeri) is now the fifth player to have appeared in 90 or more BCL games; against FMP SoccerBet he was part of the starting lineup, his first time in a BCL fixture since March 2020.
Chris Coffey (Peristeri) had 13 points and 10 rebounds on Tuesday, his first double-double in his 21 appearances in the BCL. Coffey had 10+ rebounds in each of his last two league games, after doing it only once in his previous 19 appearances.
Timmy Allen (Filou Oostende) scored 24 points against Unicaja, his most in a BCL game; it was his first time as a starter in a league fixture.