Group B midway through the regular season

What’s made Group B special?

The midway point of the 7DAYS EuroCup Regular Season is time to step back and see what’s special in each of the groups. Group B features some of the top individual performers in the EuroCup this season, whether it be scorers, rebounders, playmakers or potential Rising Stars.

Top scorers

The top two scorers in the EuroCup this season are both guards in Group B. Joe Young of Promitheas Patras leads all players with 23.4 points per game. He has scored at least 20 points in six of his seven appearances this season. Young’s total is the fifth-highest in EuroCup history for players with at least seven games played. Kyle Allman of Paris Basketball is second in scoring this season with 18.9 points per game. Young was injured when Paris hosted Promitheas in Round 8, but these two high scorers will get a second chance to square off in Round 17.

Home of the big men…

By all measures, the top big men in the EuroCup this season are competing in Group B. The top four rebounders are there: Alpha Kaba of Buducnost VOLI Podgorica leads the way with 11.5 per game, Paris Basketball center Ismael Kamagate is second with 9.3 followed by Turk Telekom Ankara’s Tyrique Jones (8.4) and Veolia Towers Hamburg’s Yoeli Childs (8.1). Of the 10 players averaging at least 1 block per game, eight are in Group B. The top big men in terms of PIR are also in the group: Kaba (20.8) is second, Jones (18.5) is sixth, Kamagate (18.4) seventh and Hapoel Vegan Friendly Tel Aviv’s Jaylen Hoard is eighth (18.3).

… And the top playmakers

Not only are the best bigs pushing their way around the paint in Group B, the top playmakers are there too! The top four assist men in the EuroCup this season are all in Group B: J’Covan Brown (7.3 apg.) is first followed by Jerian Grant (6.7 apg.) of Turk Telekom, Kendale McCullum (6.1 apg.) of Hamburg and Ferran Bassas (5.6 apg.) of Gran Canaria.

Gran Canaria’s perfect home record

Only one team has a perfect home record so far in the EuroCup this season and it’s a team that always has a distinct home-court advantage: Gran Canaria. The trip to the Canary Islands can be the longest and toughest for many teams and Coach Jaka Lakovic has used that to their advantage. Over the past decade, Gran Canaria is 43-9 in group-stage (regular season, Last 32 or Top 16) games at home for an 82.7 winning percentage. If it maintains that mastery at home, it should remain in the thick of the fight for the top spots in Group A going forward.

Group of the Rising Stars

The race for the 2022-23 EuroCup Rising Star Trophy will be, in all likelihood, decided in Group B. Through nine games, the top six Rising Star Award-eligible players in terms of performance index rating are all in this group. Paris’s Ismael Kamagate stands head and shoulders above the rest with an average PIR of 18.4. His teammate Juhann Begarin is fourth (9.3). Gran Canaria centers Khalifa Diop and Aleksander Balcerowski, are second and third, respectively. Diop (11.4) is the reigning EuroCup Rising Star and Balcerowski (10.8) won the award in 2021. Rounding out the list are Matteo Spagnolo (9.2) of Dolomiti Energia Trento and Ziga Samar (8.9) of Hamburg.