U-BT Cluj-Napoca: A three-front season, such a solid performance for the Romanian team
The 2025 – 2026 season will go down in Romanian basketball history as the most ambitious and complete that U-BT Cluj-Napoca has ever experienced. The defending champions competed simultaneously in the BKT EuroCup and the ABA League, Europe’s top two competitions, and successfully achieved all three of their goals set at the start of the season.
On the European stage, U-BT qualified for the EuroCup quarterfinals for the third consecutive year. Their run was stopped by Turkey’s Bahçeşehir Koleji, a team that finished third in the Turkish league behind Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş. Iverson Molinar was named MVP of the Eight Finals, confirming that the 25-year-old Panamanian is the key man for the “Red Caps.”
In the ABA League, U-BT participated in the Adriatic League for the first time in club history, qualifying for the Top 8 and reaching 5th place after losing to Budućnost – a remarkable result for a team making its debut in the competition. Serbian center Dušan Miletić finished the season as the blocks leader for the entire ABA League, an impressive statistic in a competition with such strong traditions.
But the pinnacle of the season came in the national championship finals. U-BT won their sixth consecutive title, defeating CSM Oradea 74-72 in the decisive game amid an electric atmosphere in Cluj-Napoca. Daron Russell scored 23 points and was named Finals MVP, while Molinar added 17. The 2026 title is the 11th in the history of Cluj basketball.
Head Coach Mihai Silvășan, capturing the seventh title of his career, summarised the essence of this season: “We were away from home for over 100 days. We looked for solutions and moved forward as winners.”
In Cluj-Napoca, the basketball project backed by the powerful Banca Transilvania – the strongest in SE Europe – continues. It remains to be seen whether the team’s key players like Russel, Creek, or Miletić can be retained for next season, or if the management will pull off new surprises with new top-tier European players.
Razvan Tabrea
Photo credit: EuroCup
