The teams from Group A went 4-0 against their opponents in the eighthfinals.
The eighthfinals results prove: Group A was tougher
Article
3 Mins read
Back on July 7, 2023, when the draw was completed for the 2023-24 BKT EuroCup Regular Season, the initial reaction among many was that there was some disparity between the two groups. Group A appeared to be the tougher group.
In fact, when club representatives were asked for their thoughts, many used the same adjective about Group A. “Tough”.
Front office members from Group A teams Paris Basketball, Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv, Wolves Vilnius, Umana Reyer Venice and Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana all described the group as tough. Meanwhile, some of their Group B counterparts described their draws as “interesting”.
Eight months have passed since then and while it may have been difficult to make an unequivocal claim about which was the stronger group during or immediately after the regular season, the testimony from the EuroCup Eighthfinals screams out: Group A was stronger.
The eighthfinals pitted the four teams ranked third through sixth in each group against opponents from the other group, with the third-placed teams facing the sixth-placed sides and the fourth- and fifth-placed teams meeting. All four teams from Group A won their single-elimination games and advanced to the quarterfinals.
In most cases, it wasn’t even close. Only outgoing champion Dreamland Gran Canaria managed to take the game to the wire before missing a potential game-winner at the buzzer and falling to Besiktas Emlakjet Istanbul at home.
In the other games, Joventut Badalona, ranked fifth in Group A, bested ratiopharm Ulm, fourth in Group B, by 9 on the road. Both higher-ranked Group A teams, third-placed London Lions and fourth-placed Prometey Slobozhanske, won in blowouts. London torched Turk Telekom Ankara 100-77 and Prometey plastered Aris 95-67.
All this proves is that in the middle of the pack, Group A packed more of a punch than Group B. The next stage in the argument will come in the quarterfinals, when the top two teams from each group, which all earned eighthfinals byes, enter the fray with home games.
Two of those quarterfinals will be exclusively Group A teams. Group A winner Paris will host Joventut and the group runner-up Hapoel will meet Besiktas. Will the other two pairings shed any light on the group comparisons? Those games will feature Group B winner Mincidelice JL Bourg en Bresse against Prometey, which reached the semifinals last season, and Group B runner-up U-BT Cluj-Napoca against London Lions.
If either Bourg or Cluj falls, it will cement the claim that Group A is stronger by making the majority of the semifinals teams from Group A. Could it be a clean sweep?