On February 28, in the wake of the decisions of other sporting bodies, the Euroleague agreed to suspend the participation of the Russian Federation teams in both the top continental basketball competition (with CSKA Moscow, Unics Kazan and Zenit St. Petersburg as affected clubs) and in the Eurocup (with Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar as the only one involved) due to the war scenario opened after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On the afternoon of this Tuesday, that suspension has become a definitive exclusion. Both tournaments remake the classifications eliminating all their disputed matches.
The decision does not imply a great alteration in the options of the Spanish teams in contention in the Euroleague. Barcelona, which was first in the previous classification with 22 wins and six losses, maintains the lead with a balance of 19-5. Real Madrid, which had four wins and one loss against the Russian teams, also maintains its second place in the table now with 18 wins and six losses. And Baskonia, which was 15th, four wins out of the eight places that give access to the play off of the quarterfinals and had lost all five of their matches against Russian clubs, they now have another chance of qualifying by finishing 10th, although with only three games to play.
The exodus of players from Russian teams in the last three weeks, since Vladimir Putin began the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, had left the squads of the main clubs participating in the Euroleague very weak. Daniel Hackett, Tornike Shengelia, Iffe Lundberg, Marius Grigonis, Johannes Voigtmann and Joel Bolomboy have already left CSKA (the first two heading to the Italian Virtus). Americans Jarrell Brantley, Isaiah Canaan, John Brown and Lorenzo Brown also left Velimir Perasovic’s Unics. And last Friday Mateusz Ponitka, Polish forward for Zenit St. Petersburg led by Xavi Pascual, joined an unstoppable list of casualties. At Zenit, the situation of Billy Baron, Jordan Lloyd, Tyson Carter, Alex Poythress and Pascual himself has yet to be resolved. While waiting to determine if these sports structures are sustainable to compete only in the VTB United League, the dismantling places many top-level players and coaches on the market.
Meanwhile, this season’s Euroleague will end with 15 teams. Barça and Real Madrid are already classified for the quarterfinal tie. The azulgrana with guaranteed home court factor and the whites one win away from sealing that court advantage. The EuroLeague Final Four will be played from May 19-21 at Belgrade’s Stark Arena after the EuroLeague moved the event from Berlin to the Serbian capital.
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