We’ve got a double week of EuroLeague action coming up.
The 20 teams have all played nine games so far and there have been some surprising performances, both positively and negatively.
The Top Three
There are three teams sat on 7-2 win-loss records and none of them would have been obvious picks for that accolade heading into this season.
Zalgiris Kaunas
They defeated Valencia 86-77 last week to make it four wins in a row. The team finished outside of the play-off spots last season (13th) with a 15-19 record, but have had an excellent start to this campaign. Sylvain Francisco won the league’s MVP award for October and the Frenchman has proved to be an inspired signing since joining the team ahead of the 24-25 season from Bayern Munich.
Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade
Red Star snuck into the playoffs last season with an 18-16 record; however hopes that they would take a step forward in 25-26 looked optimistic as they lost their first two EuroLeague games and Head Coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos was dismissed.
Although it felt like a rushed decision so early in the season, the Red Star higher-ups have been proved correct as the team has responded with seven consecutive EuroLeague victories, six of them under former player Sasa Obradovic.
Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv
As for Hapoel, the 24-25 BKT EuroCup winners have had a dream start to life in the EuroLeague. They lost to Olympiacos on 31 October to end a four-game winning streak, yet they bounced back immediately with a 109-97 win over Dubai this past week. Former Efes guard Elijah Bryant had 25 points in the victory as part of a strong start to this season. Bryant also does an excellent job of giving fans an insight into the life of a EuroLeague player via his YouTube channel that is well worth checking out.
At the other end
Partizan Belgrade arguably have been the biggest disappointment so far, scuffling to a 3-6 record. They took the unusual decision to issue a statement on Monday to “officially address the Euroleague management with a request to protect its fundamental right to equal conditions in the competition” (as per the Google translation) whilst drawing attention to a series of officiating decisions that have gone against the team.
Although the examples they gave all have merit, refereeing decisions have been far from their only problem in the early going. In particular, they have looked disjointed defensively and have the joint third-worst defensive rating in the league in allowing 120.7 points per 100 possessions.
Barcelona are the team that shares this poor defensive rating with Partizan and whilst they’ve edged a couple of close games to have a 5-4 record, that hasn’t been enough for Head Coach Joan Penarroya to retain the confidence of the team’s management. He was sacked on Sunday after a 96-78 loss against Basquet Girona in the Liga ACB. Assistant coach Oscar Orellana will take over on an interim basis.
Double week coming up
This week brings Rounds 10 and 11 across Tuesday to Friday.
There are seven games on Tuesday, with the pick for me being the all-Spanish affair between Valencia and Real Madrid.
Real have won all four of the EuroLeague meetings between the two sides in the past two seasons and come into this game on the back of yet another El Clásico win over Barcelona in a Friday night thriller from the Palau Blaugrana. This will be Madrid’s first visit to the stunning new Voig Arena as the two teams are yet to play in the Liga Endesa (ACB) so far this season.
The three games on Wednesday include Zalgiris travelling to fourth-placed Olympiacos as well as a heavyweight clash from the SAP Arena between Bayern Munich and Barcelona.
Then Round 11 is split into equal batches of five games on Thursday and Friday. The ties include a run-and-gun match-up between Paris and Valencia and an intriguing clash between Efes and Bayern, with both teams having had somewhat uninspiring starts to their seasons whilst coping with a rash of injuries.
From Deep UK 
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