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Barcelona sweeps into Final Four!

Barcelona sweeps into Final Four!

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3 May 20234 Mins read

For the third year in a row, FC Barcelona will compete at the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four! After finishing the regular season as the No. 2 seed with a 23-11 record, Barca swept Zalgiris Kaunas 3-0 in the playoffs and will soon head back to Kaunas, Lithuania, to take part in European basketball's showpiece event.

Barca has made it to the Final Four in all three years that head coach Saras Jasikevicius has been in charge, while this will be the club's ninth Final Four appearance since the playoff format was reintroduced in the EuroLeague for the 2004-05 campaign. In this year's semifinals, it will take on the winner of the series between Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade and archrival Real Madrid. Partizan leads that series 2-1 and will host Game 4. Seeking its first EuroLeague title since 2010, will this be the year that Barca fans are able to become kings of the continent once again?

Journey to the Final Four

During the 34-round regular season, Barca remained towards the top of the standings throughout – and it improved as time went on. In fact, since its overtime loss at Real in Round 21, Barca has gone 13-3. Shrinking that down further, Coach Jasikevicius's side is 8-1 over its last nine games and it managed to avoid any scares in the playoffs, having had to go to a Game 5 in its playoff series with Zenit St. Petersburg in 2021 and FC Bayern Munich in 2022.

Barca blew Zalgiris out of the water in Game 1, establishing a 17-point lead at halftime before going on to win 91-69. Sertac Sanli was particularly impressive in that fixture, scoring a game-high 17 points off the bench, while reigning EuroLeague MVP Nikola Mirotic had 15 points. Zalgiris head coach Kazys Maksvytis called for a reaction in Game 2, and he got it, but Jan Vesely with 26 points and Mirotic with 22 joined forces to keep Barca on the right track, 89-81. The series moved to Lithuania for Game 3, but the Blaugrana kept their foot on the gas and came away with a 66-77 victory, thanks to 14 points apiece from Tomas Satoransky and Vesely. With that Game 3 victory at Zalgirio Arena, the venue for this year's Final Four, Barca had an early opportunity to test out the rims ahead of the semifinals and potentially the championship game.

Final Four experience

Barca enters the 2023 Final Four with many players who have made it to this point before. In the case of Mirotic, Cory Higgins, Alex Abrines and Kyle Kuric, they have all been on the same journey as Coach Jasikevicius by making three straight Final Fours with Barca. Others, like Nicolas Laprovittola, Rokas Jokubaitis and Sanli, were also part of the team that made it to last year's Final Four. Last summer, the Blaugrana signed a couple of former EuroLeague champions in Vesely and Nikola Kalinic, who won the title with Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul in 2017 and appeared in five straight Final Fours between 2015 and 2019.

However, one player who will get to taste the Final Four for the first time is guard Satoransky, who returned to the club last summer after a six-year spell in the NBA. Otherwise, the only players on the roster without Final Four experience are those towards the end of the bench, such as Oscar da Silva and Oriol Pauli. Youngsters James Nnaji and Sergi Martinez were both on the team last season, but neither player featured in the Final Four.

Final Four history

Barca can now prepare for its ninth Final Four appearance since 2003-04 and its 17th since the Final Four format was adopted in 1988. In that time, Barca has won two EuroLeague titles – in 2003 and 2010 – and it has finished as runner-up on five occasions.

On its last two trips under Coach Jasikevicius, the Blaugrana was the runner-up in 2021, losing to Anadolu Efes Istanbul in the championship game, and the winner of the third-place game last season, having lost against Real in the semifinals before defeating Olympiacos Piraeus.