U-BT Cluj-Napoca, between the title contenders in the Eurocup
Two summers ago U-BT Cluj-Napoca decided to leave the Basketball Champions League (where they just had a great season, almost reaching the Final Four) and entered the EuroCup for the first time in the club’s history. In the first season, they had some great wins, beating Cedevita twice and also defeating Joventut Badalona, Brescia and Bursaspor. However, this wasn’t enough for them to qualify further, finishing 9th in their group. Last season U-BT improved the roster, bringing some players with great experience and quality and the results got a lot better. The blacks and whites were a force in Group A and finished the regular season in second place, earning a spot in the quarterfinals, where they also had a home-court advantage. Unfortunately, not even a packed BT Arena with 10.000 people could help them defeat the London Lions, which was a superior team defeating the Romanian champions 91-79.
Now U-BT wants to take a step further in the competition and the team from Cluj made some impressive transfers this summer. At the starting point guard position, Zavier Simpson was brought in to replace the departure of Bryce Jones. Finland national team captain Sasu Salin will be a threat to every opponent from the three-point line. Forward Kevin Hervey is another offensive weapon and he is expected to be one of the top two scorers of the team. For the big man positions the departures of Emanuel Cate and Andrija Stipanovic were replaced with the acquisitions of Zach Hankins and De’Shawn Stephens. Adam Mokoka, team captain Patrick Richard, Karel Guzman, Mareks Mejeris and DJ Seeley (who was re-signed just a few days ago) will stay in Cluj so the team will have some chemistry too. Tudor Somacescu and Mihai Maciuca are the Romanian players who will complete the roster for the EuroCup games, but they will play more limited roles in the rotation. The team’s coach remains Mihai Silvasan, who will begin his 9th season as the head coach of U-BT.
The season’s first game for the team from Transylvania will be on Wednesday evening when they will welcome Cedevita Ljubljana. It promises to be an exciting season for U-BT fans as the team further improves compared to last season. Still, the overall quality of the EuroCup also improved with teams like Hapoel Tel Aviv, the Spanish trio Valencia, Gran Canaria and Joventut Badalona or Besiktas Istanbul that all have ambitions to win the competition.
Razvan Tabrea
Photo credit: FRB
