MIES (Switzerland) - The ninth season of the Basketball Champions League continued with Week 2, and there were plenty of highlights on a four-game Tuesday evening across the continent. This is what we learned last night.
The Vokuhila Killa
Losing the MVP of the League in Otis Livingston was a tough one for FIT/One Wurzburg Basket over the summer. Then, they also lost Javon Bess, Isaiah Washington and Darius Perry, meaning the front office had a mountain to climb.
Luckily for them, Kresimir Loncar and Saso Filipovski are really good at what they do, so the Sport and Scouting manager and the head coach got together and had a couple of priorities in front of them.
Number one: Protect the dude with the mullet at all costs.
Zac Seljaas is a hard working forward, and Wurzburg picked him up after his 17.0 points and 5.9 rebounds on 44.1 percent three-point shooting season, at Tigers in Tubingen in Germany's second division.
A jump to a higher division would hurt most people's numbers, but somehow, Seljaas was unfazed as he tasted the easyCredit Bundesliga action for the first time, finishing last season with 13.4 points, 6.0 rebounds and making 44.2 percent of his threes for Wurzburg.
He finished in the top ten in efficiency rating in Bundesliga, and that Loncar-Filipovski tandem knew he had more to give so they kept him on board for another year with the FIT/Ones.
With his trademark mullet, called the Vokuhila, short for vorne kurz, hinten lang, meaning short up front, long in the back, and being a killer on the floor, he quickly became the fan favorite in Germany.
Fener's top scorer
Now, without Livingston, they needed to find some scoring in the backcourt, too. They searched far and wide, ending up with a man who put up 25.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game for Fenerbahce Koleji.
Mike Davis Jr has been all over the world before landing in Turkiye, with a couple of campaigns in Georgia - the European country, not the US state - then moving westbound to Ukraine and Poland, before heading down south to Greece and Turkiye.
Fenerbahce brought him in to be the leader of their second team in the Turkish TBL, and his elite scoring touch did not go unnoticed. Wurzburg were the ones with the best offer, and it seems like getting Davis to Germany was a smart move for all sides involved.
Davis had a pair of double digit games in the Bundesliga to start the season, but his BCL numbers have been even better, as he opened up his account with 20 points against Hapoel Netanel Holon, and followed it up with 25 points, 9 rebounds and an efficiency rating of 31 against Igokea this week.
Seljaas saw him go off for 19 points in the third quarter alone and thought to himself, "I better join in on this." The forward ended up with nearly identical numbers: 25 points, 8 rebounds, efficiency rating 31.
It wasn't a one-off, either, as Zac also had 23 points and 5 boards against Holon the previous week.
Those are historical numbers in terms of a pair of teammates going crazy in the BCL. The only other time two players on the same team had 25+ points and 8+ rebounds was back in November 2018, when Julian Gamble (28pts, 11reb) and Adas Juskevicius (31pts, 9reb) pulled it off for Nanterre 92 against Umana Reyer Venezia.
Believe the hype in Wurzburg. They are 2-0 now, and they are doing it so effortlessly, it made people forget they had the Bundesliga MVP last season.
Nymburk are for real
Speaking of Livingston, he was supposed to be a part of a big Galatasaray party in Istanbul, with the team looking to take a 2-0 start to the season, as well. However, ERA Nymburk had other ideas.
The Czech champs are a completely different team compared to their last two abysmal Regular Season runs. The way they put this team together, it's a reminder of what they did in 2020 and 2021 when they played back-to-back BCL Final 8 tournaments.
Strong homegrown leadership in Jaromir Bohacik, Martin Kriz and Ondrej Sehnal, plus a lot of international youngsters such as Nighael Ceaser and Christian Bishop, all incorporated in coach Francesco Tabellini's fast paced offense, and all of a sudden, Nymburk are 2-0 with two road wins in Greece and Turkiye.
We don't have the Final 8 anymore. That's fine. Nymburk can also be a Final Four team, why not?
Quick notes
Only 19 free-throws were attempted in the game between Hapoel Netanel Holon and Nanterre 92, the fewest in a single BCL game since March 2023, when also 19 free-throws were taken in the all-Israeli matchup between Holon and Jerusalem
Dylan Ennis (UCAM Murcia) combined for 10+ points, 5+ rebounds and 5+ assists only for the second time in his 59 appearances in the BCL (also 24pts, 9ast, 5reb v SIG Strasbourg in May 2021, then with Casademont Zaragoza)
Owen Klassen (FIT/One Wurzburg Baskets) blocked four shots against Igokea, the most in his 37 appearances in the BCL
Igokea m:tel's Terrell Carter wasn't able to block any shots against FIT/One Wurzburg Baskets, ending a run of 13 consecutive games with at least a block - only Zach Hankins has had a longer run than him in the BCL history (20 games; Damian Kulig and Moustapha Fall also 13 games)