BARCELONA, 7 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The six Spanish teams participating in the 2022/23 Basketball Champions League already know their rivals at the beginning of the road to the title, with Unicaja and Breogán in the preliminary phase and UCAM Murcia, Surne Bilbao, BAXI Manresa and Lenovo Tenerife, current champion , in the group stage.
With four champions and 52 representatives of the participating teams, the new edition of the Basketball Champions League kicked off this Thursday with the draw for the preliminary phase and group phase, with former player Nicolás Richotti –champion with Tenerife in 2017– and Dusan Sakota as emcees.
The four qualifying tournaments will kick off on September 21 with the four winners qualifying for the regular season group stage, which begins on October 4. In that preview will be Unicaja, who will directly play the semifinal of the second tournament against Heroes Den Bosch or Siauliai, and Breogán, who will play in the fourth tournament and will debut in the quarterfinals against the Serbian FMP Meridian.
Both will have to win their respective duels in their qualifying tournaments to be in a group stage where Lenovo Tenerife and BAXI Manresa await – as current champion and runner-up of the competition – as well as Surne Bilbao and UCAM Murcia.
The winners of each group will advance directly to the round of 16, while the second and third place teams will advance to the Play-In series, to be played in January 2023.
The round of 16 will see four groups of four teams. The top two advance to the best-of-three quarterfinal series, with the season concluding with a ‘Final Four’ event scheduled for May 12-14.