Breakdown: Gran Canaria vs. Slask Wroclaw

Group B winner Gran Canaria will host Slask Wroclaw, the eighth-placed team in Group A, in the eighthfinals on Wednesday.

Slask looks for first road win

To make it to the quarterfinals, Slask will need to record its first road win of this EuroCup season. Slask has won three games until now, and all of them were at home - against Hamburg Towers in Round 6, Turk Telekom Ankara in Round 12 and Dolomiti Energia Trento in Round 14. It lost on the road three times by 4 points or less, at Boulogne Metropolitans 92 in Round 2 (86-83), Trento in Round 5 (81-77) and Partizan NIS Belgrade (75-73) in Round 7.

On the other hand, Gran Canaria did not have its best season at home. Half of its six losses came at Gran Canaria Arena - in the season opener against Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana (77-79), in Round 6 against ratiopharm Ulm (81-96) and its regular-season finale against Umana Reyer Venice (69-76).

Gran Canaria's Polish connection

Gran Canaria features two Polish players, center Olek Balcerowski and playmaker A.J. Slaughter, and that gives the hosts another advantage. Balcerowski, the 2020-21 7DAYS EuroCup Rising Star, was born in Swidnica, some 50 kilometers from Wroclaw. He is averaging 9.4 points and 2.2 rebounds since re-joining the team in March.

Slaughter became a Polish citizen in 2015 and has played for the Polish national team ever since. He is averaging 11.2 points on 45.2% three-pointers and 3.5 assists in 15 EuroCup games this season. Slaughter and Balcerowski helped Poland reach the 2019 World Cup quarterfinals in its first appearance at the tournament since 1967.

Experience is on Granca's side

Gran Canaria is in its 14th EuroCup season and ranks third among clubs in games played; the game against Slask will be its 205th in the competition. It seeks a seventh trip to the EuroCup quarterfinals. Gran Canaria's best result was reaching the 2015 Finals, where it lost against Khimki Moscow Region. Last season, Gran Canaria made it to the semifinals.

Slask is playing its first EuroCup campaign since the 2007-08 season. Back then, Gran Canaria center Oliver Stevic made his EuroCup debut with Slask. Stevic has played 100 games in the competition with seven different teams. Only one Slask player has EuroCup eighthfinals experience; Ivan Ramljak played for Cedevita Zagreb against Gran Canaria in 2015. Kerem Kanter helped Joventut qualify for the 2020 quarterfinals, but those games were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A clash of styles

Gran Canaria has scored 81.3 points on average this season. Its scoring average rises to 86.1 points in wins and falls to 71.7 points in losses. Coach Porfi Fisac's team is 1-5 (20%) when scoring 77 points or less, and 11-1 (91.7%) when topping that number. Its only win scoring less than 77 points came in Round 10 when it defeated Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana 60-75. Its only loss scoring more than 77 points was at home against ratiopharm Ulm in Round 6, 81-96.

Slask is 2-0 (100%) when holding opponents under 70 points and 1-14 (7.1%) when it doesn't. It has not happened very often this season, as Slask allows 84.1 points on average. Opponents get 12.4 offensive rebounds per night - only Turk Telekom Ankara (13.8) allows more. Therefore, it looks like the game rhythm should be important - Gran Canaria likes to run the floor and Slask is more effective when the game rhythm is low.