Frutti Extra Bursaspor, the 2021-22 7DAYS EuroCup's road warrior, is seeking to join a list of teams that won the title without any home-court advantage.
Bursaspor hopes to join list of EuroCup champion road warriors
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Bursaspor ranked seventh at the end of the regular season and has taken down Partizan NIS Belgrade, Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana and MoraBanc Andorra to reach the EuroCup Final. It won all three games on the road, needing overtime to beat Partizan in front of 19,000 fans at Stark Arena, surviving a thriller against Cedevita in a fully-packed Arena Stozice, and thrashing Andorra in front of a sellout crowd. As such, Bursaspor has earned the chance to become the third team to win the competition without any home-court advantage when it takes visits Virtus Segafredo Bologna on Wednesday.
Valencia Basket was the first team to make it through the EuroCup Playoffs entirely on the road back in the 2013-14 season. Valencia struggled to qualify, ranking second in its Last 32 group with a 3-3 record. The road to the title featured four home-and-away series, with Valencia playing Game 1 at home in each and the higher-placed team enjoying the advantage of playing Game 2 on the road. Valencia, coached by Velimir Perasovic, managed to navigate the entire playoffs safely, winning all four home games by a solid margin and keeping its lead or sweeping on the road.
In the eighthfinals against Khimki Moscow Region, Valencia registered a 75-59 home win in the first leg and just managed to survive despite losing the second leg 97-82 to win the series with an aggregate score of 157-156 on a late jumper by Pau Ribas. Once in the quarterfinals against ALBA Berlin, Valencia thrashed ALBA Berlin 86-54 at La Fonteta behind 33 points from Justin Doellman, turning the second leg into a mere procedure. Valencia went on to sweep the semifinals against Nizhny Novgorod and the finals against UNICS Kazan. Doellman was chosen as the 2014 7DAYS EuroCup Finals MVP.
In 2017, Unicaja Malaga ranked second in its Top 16 group and had the worst record among playoff teams. To keep advancing, then, Unicaja was faced with having to win at least one road game in each best-of-three playoffs series. The Spanish club, coached by Joan Plaza, played its Cinderella role to perfection and surprised everyone against all odds.
Things did not look good for Unicaja in its quarterfinals series against FC Bayern Munich, which won Game 1 at the Audi Dome. Unicaja tied the series with an 82-67 home victory and went back to Munich to win 67-74 in Game 3 behind 21 points from Nemanja Nedovic. Unicaja stayed strong in the semis against Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar, sweeping the series 2-0 with double-digit wins in Krasnodar and Malaga. In the EuroCup Finals, that pattern repeated. High-ranked Valencia took Game 1, 68-62, but Unicaja tied the series at home, 79-71, behind 20 points from Jamar Smith.
It all came down to Game 3, in which Valencia had a 56-43 margin early in the fourth quarter. Unicaja was without centers, as Alen Omic had been ejected and Dejan Musli was unavailable due to injury. Forced to use Carlos Suarez at center, Coach Plaza's team held Valencia scoreless for 8 minutes while Smith and Dani Diez fueled an 0-18 run which allowed Unicaja to win the title, 59-63. Point guard Alberto Diez was chosen as the 2017 EuroCup Finals MVP.
Bursaspor has a golden chance to win the EuroCup title in just its second season in the competition, becoming the third Turkish team to do it -- after Galatasaray Istanbul in 2016 and Darussafaka Istanbul in 2018. It wouldn't be the first team to lift the trophy on another's home court, but Bursaspor would do something unprecedented should it win in Bologna on Wednesday: sweep through the playoffs to the EuroCup title with no home wins at all!