The Turkish side finally ended its seven-game losing streak in Round 10.
Turk Telekom looks to have turned a corner in the EuroCup
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Not much has gone to plan for Turk Telekom Ankara in the BKT EuroCup this season. However, Tuesday evening’s 95-84 win over U-BT Cluj-Napoca in Round 10 could end up being a positive step in the right direction.
After seven straight defeats, dating back to Round 2, Turk Telekom at last knows what it is like to win again in the EuroCup. Just over seven months since losing the EuroCup Final to Dreamland Gran Canaria, seeing Turk Telekom with a 2-8 record is still a shock, but perhaps we are about to see a miracle in the EuroCup.
After all, defeating Cluj has not been an easy task for any team this season. Coming into Tuesday evening’s game, the Romanian side had an impressive 7-2 record and has largely had the type of campaign that many expected from Turk Telekom.
A first half of the season to forget
Why is that, you may ask? Despite Turk Telekom’s EuroCup runner-up roster getting torn apart, and Erdem Can leaving as head coach, the club’s front office made several moves that put the team in position to replicate last year’s success.
Just look at this: Jalen Adams, who has not played since Round 7, dropped down to the EuroCup after making a positive impact with Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague last season; James Palmer moved to Turk Telekom after a stellar debut EuroCup campaign with Mincidelice JL Bourg en Bresse; Tyrone Wallace joined the club following an equally impressive first EuroCup campaign with Paris Basketball; and Steven Enoch followed Adams’s path by leaving a EuroLeague club in favor for one in the EuroCup.
But, nine games in to the 2023-24 EuroCup season, Turk Telekom was 1-8 and it looked like the wheels had well and truly fallen off. Add in the fact that Nenad Canak, the man charged with leading this project, was sacked as head coach after Round 3 – when Turk Telekom was 1-2 – and it paints a miserable picture.
Good times ahead?
There is reason to be optimistic, though. Selcuk Ernak ended up being named as Coach Canak’s replacement ahead of Round 5 and went winless in his first five games in charge, but Tuesday night showed that the players are in his corner.
There were a couple of positive interactions between the 53-year-old tactician and Turkish duo Okben Ulubay and Ismail Cem Ulusoy late in the game, while Palmer erupted for a season-high 24 points, Wallace had 15 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals in an all-round performance, and Enoch added 14 points, too.
“In the first half, we gave up 48 points. We had a good offensive rhythm and we scored 53,” said Coach Ernak in the post-game flash interview. “In the second half, we only allowed 36 points. This is how you win in the EuroCup. You cannot survive only with offense, so I want to thank the players that they could accomplish this, even with a short roster.”
The important thing for Turk Telekom and Coach Ernak is to ensure that the good times continue, with the Turkish side facing the only team it had beaten prior to Tuesday night, Buducnost VOLI Podgorica, on the road in Round 11.
“We are going through tough days as a club,” Ernak added in the post-game press conference. “We are playing with only three foreign players, but I can’t express how much I respect my players’ hustle today and their positive attitude as a team.”
There are still nine games left in the EuroCup Regular Season and with Turk Telekom just a couple of games back of Dolomiti Energia Trento in sixth, albeit with Wednesday’s fixtures still to take place, it is not far-fetched to think that this squad could create a miracle.
First up, though, is Buducnost. If Turk Telekom wins that game and gets some momentum going, we could be looking at a very dangerous side come playoff time. But, before any of that, Turk Telekom needs to prove that Tuesday evening was not a one-off.