The eight-finals of the Eurocup will be mostly balanced
The EuroCup regular season ended on Wednesday and now we know exactly the matchups for the Eight-finals and also the path teams will have for the rest of the competition.
The first two placed teams from the two groups automatically qualified for the quarterfinals, and these are Bahcesehir and Hapoel Tel Aviv from Group A and Valencia together with Hapoel Jerusalem from Group B. While Bahcesehir and Valencia were sure of their place in the quarterfinals, the two Israeli teams had to defeat Ulm and Turk Telekom respectively to secure their place in the top 2 of their group.
Gran Canaria finished with the same record as Hapoel Tel Aviv in Group A. Still, Hapoel beat the Spanish team twice during the season, so Jaka Lakovic’s team will have to play against Venezia in the 1/8 finals where they will be obvious favourites.
The fourth-placed team from group A is BC Wolves Vilnius. The Lithuanian team won its last three games in the regular season and the most crucial one was on Wednesday against Buducnost, who entered the game with an identical record. The Wolves will host U-BT Cluj in the 1/8 finals as the Romanian champions beat Aris in the last round in Greece. It should be a very balanced game with no clear favourite.
As Buducnost lost in Lithuania, the Montenegrin team finished only 6th in the group and will have to play an away game in Ankara, where Turk Telekom will be waiting for them. It’s not an impossible mission for Buducnost but the Turkish team is the favourite to advance on their home court.
Finally, the last 1/8 final game will be Cedevita against Besiktas. The team from Ljubljana finished 4th in Group B, so they will be the home team, which might be a deciding factor. Cedevita finished the group stage with three straight defeats so they are not in their best moment but there is almost a month left. Meanwhile, Besiktas barely defeated Trento in the last gameday to finish 5th in Group A, so we should see an interesting game in the Slovenian capital.
Imre Halasz
Image credit: EuroLeague
