Protecting home court could be the difference between the contenders and the pretenders this season
Stats review: Road teams winning like never before
Statistiche
4 Minuto di lettura
Round 15 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague saw several big shifts in the standings, five teams securing coveted road wins and the end of Paris Basketball’s winning streak at 10 games. With another double-round week around the corner, the season is barreling towards its mid-point while second and 11th place are still separated by only two games.
One trend to keep an eye on moving forward is the value of home-court advantage. While it remains very difficult to win on the road in the EuroLeague, which features some of the best home atmospheres in the sport, like so many other things this season, the current level of parity across the league has trimmed the margins.
The table above lists the wins, losses, and winning percentages for road teams since the EuroLeague moved to its modern regular season format for the 2016-17 season. As the table suggests, outside of the 2020-21 season when nine teams essentially played in empty arenas and the capacity of all teams was limited by COVID regulations, away teams have never fared better than they have this year. In most recent years, the team slotted fourth in the standings has been the last team to break even on the road. While there have been several exceptions, most of the teams in the middle of the standings have won as much as they have lost away from home this season.
With efficiency creeping up around all-time highs due to the culmination of little things across the league as a whole, offense has been traveling better than it has in recent seasons and that has brought a level of unpredictability to away games that the league has never seen before under normal circumstances. As AS Monaco, Zalgiris Kaunas, and EA7 Emporio Armani Milan showed in Round 15 in comfortable wins playing at quality opponents, the margin for error continues to shrink across the league as the parity is truly palpable.
Only one team remains unbeaten at home to this point: FC Bayern Munich, which sits only 3 wins shy of matching their total from last season with 19 games to play. The reason for their success is not hard to figure out on paper—they have been devastatingly effective from the field at SAP Garden. The 1.14 points per possession they have scored in their new arena ranks among the top home marks in recent history as, at the moment, it is taking that level of excellence for a team to avoid a misstep on their home floor.
Home-court advantage is still a very real thing, but the exceptionally high caliber of play offensively and the competitiveness across the league are going to keep fans on the edge of their seats more than ever.