These two teams will face off for the first-ever time on Tuesday night.
Hapoel vs. Cedevita preview: The EuroCup returns with a bang!
Article
4 Mins read
Exactly five months after last season's BKT EuroCup Final took place, the competition returns for the 2023-24 campaign. What a way for it to get underway, too, with an opening-night matchup between Group A teams Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv and Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana.
Both teams enter the new EuroCup season with goals of making the playoffs, so this Round 1 contest should be a good indicator of which team looks the stronger ahead of the remaining 17 fixtures in the regular season. This is also the first time that Hapoel and Cedevita will face off, which adds a sense of intrigue to the occasion.
Hapoel: Building on last year's achievements
It is difficult to enter the EuroCup as a first-year team and make an immediate impact, but that's exactly what Hapoel did last season. After securing the joint third-best regular-season record at 13-5, the Israeli side made it to the quarterfinals before losing to Joventut Badalona.
The 2022-23 iteration of Hapoel was led by Xavier Munford and J'Covan Brown, while Jaylen Hoard and Tomer Ginat were also key contributors. The team did lose two important players in Jordan McRae and Chinanu Onuaku over the summer, but it has retooled by adding center Kyle Alexander, impressive swingman Braian Angola and a leader for this pack of dogs, John Holland.
Perhaps most importantly, the team will once again be led by head coach Danny Franco. Under the Israeli's guidance, Hapoel had a very impressive home record, going 8-1 in the regular season before beating Umana Reyer Venice at Shlomo Group Arena in the eighthfinals. Coach Franco will hope for a similar record in the 2023-24 season, starting with Thursday's contest at home to Cedevita.
Cedevita: Starting all over again
Last season could not have gone much worse for Cedevita in the EuroCup. There was a lot of optimism surrounding the Slovenian side entering the 2022-23 campaign, but it ended up with the second-worst record in the competition at 3-15. As such, it was decided that there was a need to turn the page.
Nine new players joined the club over the summer, including the arrival of star combo-guard Justin Cobbs and the returns of Jaka Klobucar and Jaka Blazic. Importantly, one player who remains on the team is Karlo Matkovic, who is primed for a breakout season in 2023-24. There is a new head coach in place, too, with Simone Pianigiani having replaced Jurica Golemac, so he will be determined to get his new era off to a winning start on the road at Hapoel in Round 1.
It's fair to say that Cedevita struggled on its travels in the EuroCup last season, going 1-8 through its nine road games, but perhaps it could catch Hapoel off guard in this season curtain raiser. The team should arrive in Israel in confident fashion, too, after starting the ABA League season with a dramatic win over Mega Basket.