Three games this week feature teams who compete in the same domestic competitions and another has three former players coming home. Let's take a look at those stories and more of what to watch for in this week's games.
This Week's Games: Ready for regional rivalries
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This week we have the final round of games before 7DAYS EuroCup teams go on a three-week break. The slate of 10 games includes three clashes of teams who already played this season, albeit in domestic competition, as well as a head-to-head clash between the last two winless teams. Let's take a look at things to watch for in this week's games.
Regional derbies
It's the week of regional clashes. The one such game in Group A is between a pair of 3-1 teams: Joventut Badalona vs. MoraBanc Andorra. The two played a month ago in the Spanish League action and Andorra won 73-79 in Badalona behind 13-for-19 three-point shooting and 26 points from Amine Noua. Joventut will try to make sure Andorra does not repeat such an offensive showing this time. Joventut sports the EuroCup's best defense, holding opponents to 61.8 points, and has yet to allow more than 68 points in a single game. Andorra, which averaged 88.0 points in the first three games, showed it can also win a low-scoring affair when it edged Partizan NIS Belgrade 61-60 in a thriller last week.
The opening game of Group B will be the Italian derby between Virtus Segafredo Bologna (2-2) and Umana Reyer Venice (2-2). It is only November, but this will be the third time this season these two teams face off. The first two games were in Venice, where Virtus edged Reyer 71-72 in their Italian SuperCup semifinals in September and 65-84 in their Italian League game in early October. Coming off a home loss against Valencia Basket, Milos Teodosic and co. will need to make it three out of three, but Reyer will be dangerous as it comes into the game without much pressure.
Then on Wednesday in Group B, Buducnost VOLI Podgorica (3-1) hosts Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana (2-2) in the Montenegrin capital. Not only do the two sides know each other oh-too-well from their Adriatic League battles, and Buducnost already beat Cedevita 79-84 on the road in their domestic clash in late October, but they also played a do-or-die EuroCup game last season in the Top 16 finale in which Buducnost beat Cedevita in Podgorica 79-66. The victory booked Buducnost a place in the quarterfinals while eliminating Cedevita. In that game, Melvin Ejim led Buducnost with a career-high 20 points and 8 rebounds. Ejim is now wearing a Cedevita uniform and will go against his former teammates.
Challenging unbeaten Loko in Turkish capital
After losing a game last week on the road at Joventut Badalona, the head coach of Turk Telekom Ankara (2-2), Burak Goren, finished his opening statement at the post-game press conference with the following words: "It is an away game for us against a very difficult team… We fought all the way through. We lost. Next week, we are going to win on our home court."
What makes this little guarantee intriguing is that Turk Telekom welcomes the only unbeaten team, Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar, in the Round 5 opener on Tuesday. Coach Goren obviously has plenty of confidence in this team, which has Aaron Harrison (15.0 ppg.), JaJuan Johnson (13.3 ppg, 5.0 rpg.) and Octavius Ellis (5.8 rpg., 2.3 bpg.) playing in main roles. However, they will have to be at their offensive best this Tuesday. Turk Telekom is averaging 72.0 points per game, which is on average 21.8 points fewer than what the Lokomotiv offense is scoring. Johnathan Motley (22.5 ppg., 6.3 rpg.), Errick McCollum (19.0 ppg.) and Darius Thompson (14.5 ppg., 7.5 apg.) have been unstoppable so far. It will be fun to see if Coach Goren has something extra prepared when Loko comes to town.
Belgrade homecomings
Partizan NIS Belgrade (3-1) and Lietkabelis Panevezys (2-2) have never played each other before, but there will be plenty of familiarity all around when the Lithuanian team visits Stark Arena in Belgrade on Wednesday night. Lietkabelis head coach Nenad Canak, center Djordje Gagic and point guard Nikola Radicevic all spent extensive time with the Serbian powerhouse.
Before he took over the Lietkabelis bench in late 2018, Coach Canak had been first an assistant with Partizan, then a head coach in the 2017-18 season. Canak also started his professional playing career with Partizan and played there for four years, including a pair of EuroLeague seasons between 2001 and 2003. Gagic had two stints with Partizan, where he first played between 2012 and 2015 and then again in the 2018-19 season. Radicevic grew up with Partizan and played in the youth categories for four years before leaving the team when he turned 18. He never played professionally there, and unlike fan-favorites Gagic and Canak, Radicevic might not get the warmest of welcomes from the Partizan die-hards since also played for archrival Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade for the first part of the 2017-18 campaign.
The winless collide, looking to end their struggles
The only two teams yet to win a game this season are Dolomiti Energia Trento and Slask Wroclaw. Trento has lost each of its four games by at least 12 points, and by an average margin of 17.8 points. Slask has lost three of four by more than 10 points and all four by an average margin of 15.0 points. Now, the two go head-to-head in Group A.
It's hard to remember when a team struggled offensively as much as Trento has in the first four games. The team ranks last in scoring (67.5 ppg.), assists (12.0 apg.), two-point shooting (46.7%), three-point shooting (26.1%) and free throw accuracy (56.4%). Improving in any of those areas would give the team a better chance against Slask, which has had its own struggles and is coming off a 30-point loss against Lokomotiv.
Both teams will see this game as an opportunity to right the course. Whoever wins will get a much-needed boost, while the losing side will be buried a bit deeper at the bottom, and left as the last winless team this season. It turns this game into one with high stakes, and it will be interesting to see how Trento and Slask battle it out on Wednesday night.