Joventut Badalona will host its eighthfinals tie against ratiopharm Ulm after topping Group A with a 12-4 record. Ulm was eighth in Group B at 7-11.
Breakdown: Joventut Badalona vs. ratiopharm Ulm
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Joventut’s home-court advantage
The home-court advantage is meaningful to every team – and all the more so in a single-game playoff situation, however, no team has quite capitalized on that advantage like Joventut. Coach Carles Duran’s men were a EuroCup-best 9-0 at home this season and are 23-3 at Palau Olimpic de Badalona over the past three seasons.
Ulm will surely not that one of those losses came last season in Game 2 of the quarterfinals against Virtus Segafredo Bologna, which used it to sweep that series. Joventut has averaged 84.6 points at home this season and allowed its opponents just 69.0.
Lakovic’s inside knowledge
Ulm head coach Jaka Lakovic knows a thing or two about Joventut and its head coach, Carles Duran. Lakovic was Duran’s assistant during the 2017-18 season at Bilbao Basket. The following season, he came alongside Duran to Joventut before he was hired by Ulm to be its head coach in the summer of 2019. In his time at Joventut, Lakovic coached current first-team members Simon Birgander, Joel Parra, Josep Busquets, Arturs Zagars and Albert Ventura.
Joventut forward Derek Willis played under Lakovic at Ulm during 2019-20 and was a teammate there of current Ulm players Nicolas Bretzel, Per Guenther, Christoph Philipps and Marius Stoll.
Is 80 the magic number?
Ulm is 7-2 this season when scoring at least 80 points and its average of 91.6 points per victory is fourth-best in the EuroCup. However, Ulm is winless in nine games when it has failed to reach 80 points – and that includes three games in which it was held below 70. The team has averaged 75.9 points in losses.
Joventut is 9-0 when scoring at least 80 points and has been held under 70 only twice this season – once in a Round 3 loss at Partizan NIS Belgrade and the second time in Round 15 when it defeated Lietkabelis Panevezys 65-50.
Experience favors the hosts
Joventut brings considerable experience to the EuroCup knock-out phase. Two players, Pau Ribas and Guillem Vives, are EuroCup champs. More than half of Joventut’s players competed in the EuroCup Quarterfinals last season: Ferran Bassas, Simon Birgander, Vladimir Brodziansky, Joel Parra, Ribas, Ante Tomic and Albert Ventura. And though Brandon Paul has not played in this stage of the EuroCup, he helped Anadolu Efes Istanbul take Olympiacos Piraeus the distance in the best-of-five EuroLeague Playoffs in 2017.
Ulm has not played in an elimination round since the eighthfinals in 2014 and only Per Guenther remains on the team since then. He is the only player on the team to ever play in such a game in the EuroCup or EuroLeague; Cristiano Felicio and Sindarius Thornwell took part in NBA playoff games in 2017 and 2019, respectively.