Euroleague 2008-09

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section contains information about a future sporting event or team.
It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change as the event approaches and more information becomes available.

The Euroleague 2008-09 season will be ninth international basketball club competition for elite clubs throughout Europe under the ULEB umbrella. The season, which features 24 teams from 13 different countries, will culminate in the 2008-09 Euroleague Final Four at the new O₂ World arena in Berlin, Germany.^[1]

1 Teams of the 2008-2009 Euroleague
2 Format
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Teams of the 2008-2009 Euroleague

Country	Teams	Teams (ranking in 2007-08 national championship)
Spain	5^[2]	TAU Cerámica (1)	AXA FC Barcelona (2)	DKV Joventut (3)	Unicaja Málaga (4)	Real Madrid (5)
Italy	4	Montepaschi Siena	Lottomatica Roma	Air Avellino (3)	AJ Milano (4)
Greece	3	Panathinaikos (1)	Olympiacos (2)	Panionios (3)
Turkey	2	Fenerbahçe Ülker (1)	Efes Pilsen (4)
France	2	SLUC Nancy or Chorale Roanne Basket	Le Mans (4)
Lithuania	1	Žalgiris Kaunas (1)
Germany	1	ALBA Berlin or Telekom Baskets Bonn
Croatia	1	Cibona Zagreb (4)
Russia	1	CSKA Moscow (1)
Israel	1	Maccabi Tel Aviv (2)
Slovenia	1	Olimpija Ljubljana (1)
Serbia	1	Partizan Igokea or Hemofarm Stada Vršac
Poland	1	Prokom Trefl Sopot (1)

DKV Joventut qualified as ULEB Cup winners.

[edit] Format

[edit] Regular season

The first phase is a regular season, in which the competing teams are drawn into three groups, each containing eight teams. Each team plays every other team in its group at home and away, resulting in 14 games for each team in the first stage. The top 5 teams in each group and the best sixth-placed team advance to the next round. The complete list of tiebreakers is provided in the lead-in to the Regular Season results.

[edit] Top 16

The surviving teams are divided into four groups of four teams each, and again a round robin system is adopted resulting in 6 games each, with the top 2 teams advancing to the quarterfinals. Tiebreakers are identical to those used in the Regular Season.

[edit] Quarterfinals

In the quarterfinals, the top placed teams from each Top 16 group play second placed teams from a different group in a best-of-three playoff series, with the winners of those series advancing to the Final Four.

[edit] Final Four

The culminating stage of the Euroleague in which the four remaining teams play a semifinal match and the winners of those advance to the final. The losers play in a third-place playoff. The team which is victorious in the Final will be Euroleague champion.