The 2022-23 7DAYS EuroCup blasts off on Tuesday and Wednesday with 10 games loaded with storylines. Check them out below.
Round 1 at a glance: EuroCup opening-week storylines
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Rematch to watch in Ljubljana
The last time Frutti Extra Bursaspor played a 7DAYS EuroCup game, it was last year's EuroCup Finals in which the team came up short against Virtus in Bologna. The last time Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana played a EuroCup game, it hosted Bursaspor in a single-game quarterfinal, which for a few moments Cedevita thought it won until the instant replay showed that what seemed to be a game-winning triple actually came after the buzzer and Bursaspor escaped with an 83-85 win. It is only fitting that these two teams open the new season facing each other again.
In that game, Zach Auguste scored 13 points for Cedevita. On Wednesday night, he will be in a Bursaspor jersey. Many of the main protagonists are still with both teams, including Yogi Ferrell, Edo Muric and Alen Omic for Cedevita and Derek Needham, Onuralp Bitim and David Dudzinski for Bursaspor. Both coaches, EuroCup Coach of the Year Dusan Alimpijevic of Bursaspor and Cedevita's Jurica Golemac are on their teams' respective benches. It will be a fun one at Stozice Arena.
Standard-bearers and debutants
In another rematch carried over from last season's playoffs, Gran Canaria starts its 15th EuroCup season by playing its 207th games against visiting Slask Wroclaw on Wednesday. On the same floor last spring, Gran Canaria won their of their winner-take-all eighthfinals matchup last season with ease, 87-60.
Buducnost VOLI Podgorica, which has 182 game played and opens its campaign by welcoming Veolia Towers Hamburg, will join that exclusive 200 games played club, which currently includes only Gran Canaria, Valencia Basket (227) and leader UNICS Kazan (231) at the end of the regular season.
While those two teams with almost 400 EuroCup games combined get started in a familiar setting, five clubs are set to make their very first appearances in the competition. Three of those debutants will get the season started on Tuesday, with two of them facing each other.
Hapoel Tel Aviv and London Lions will have their first EuroCup tipoff in Group B on Tuesday at 19:00 CET, at the same time as Paris Basketball will be making its own EuroCup history when it visits Turk Telekom in Group A.
Two more Group A newcomers will get their first tests on Wednesday: Ukrainian side Prometey Slobozhanske will debut against visiting 7Bet-Lietkabelis Panevezys, in Riga, Latvia, while U-BT Cluj-Napoca starts things off on the road to face Mincidelice JL Bourg en Bresse.
Collision of youngsters and veterans
The opening-game Group A encounter between ratiopharm Ulm and Umana Reyer Venice will be a clash between the former's youth and the latter's experience. Half a dozen Ulm payers are 23 or younger. That includes a backcourt featuring 23-year-old playmaker Yago dos Santos, 18-year-old Juan Nunez on loan from Real Madrid, and 19-year-old Fedor Zugic. Meanwhile, Ulm's frontcourt consists of forward Philipp Herkenhoff and center Nicolas Bretzel, each 23, as well as small forward Latrell Grosskopf, 21.
Reyer, meanwhile, is loaded with proven veterans, like the play-making duo of Jayson Granger and Marco Spissu both of whom arrived to Venice from Turkish Airlines EuroLeague clubs. Big man Amedeo Tessitori won the EuroCup with Virtus Segafredo Bologna last season. Allerik Freeman has been scoring in bunches and Derek Willis doing damage around the rim in recent EuroCup seasons. That's in addition to the likes of Michael Bramos, Jeff Brooks and Mitchell Watt, who have been carrying this team in the past. They will look to put all that experience to use against the Ulm youngsters.
Redemption starts in Round 1
Joventut Badalona opens on its home floor against Germani Brescia on Tuesday, hoping for another successful regular season, but a longer run than last year. Joventut finished the 2021-22 regular season with a competition-best 12-4 record, which earned it home-court advantage in every playoff game. Despite going a perfect 9-0 at home in its group, Joventut stumbled on the very first playoffs obstacle, losing its single-game eighthfinal against ratiopharm Ulm. Joventut's first guest this season is Germani Brescia, a returnee to the competition after a year away. In the 2019-20 EuroCup, Brescia finished last in its regular season group and will be aiming for much better this time around.
The season will start with a victory for one of two teams hoping to put the 2021-22 campaign behind them as Dolomiti Energia Trento and Promitheas Patras face each other on Wednesday. Each ended last season at the bottom of its group. Trento enters this one on a 12-game EuroCup losing streak, five of those defeats coming at home. Promitheas has lost is last five EuroCup games and six in a row away from home. One of them will certainly end a bad streak on Wednesday.