We can clearly see that there are different sports branches other than football, and that different sports branches can be more popular in different countries, especially during the Olympic periods. Our low number of Olympic athletes, the number of branches we participate in and the sports degrees we achieve reveal our general situation. In the last Paris Olympics, while we were looking back to the past in our ancestral sports of wrestling and weightlifting, we found solace in a few branches such as women’s boxing, archery and shooting, and we were proud of our women’s national volleyball.
Unfortunately, in countries like Türkiye, sports are thought to consist of football. Of course, there are sociological reasons for this, for example, the society should be kept busy. Let’s leave this aspect of the issue for now.
Personally, I try to watch volleyball and basketball in every field. Especially THY Euroleage, the biggest organization of our continent in basketball, is registered in my calendar.
THY Euroleage, with 18 teams, is like a private league that major top-level football clubs want to create among themselves. It is a league where players and clubs playing in local leagues and other FIBA leagues set their goals to take part. Those from Europe who could not go to the American league NBA, as well as American and other elite players of the world who could not find a better contract in the NBA, compete in this league. Likewise, it is a league to which those who went to the NBA from Europe and could not make it, return again. For example, 4 Turkish players who returned from the NBA this year are trying to get playing time in Euroleag teams. Cedi Osman and Ömer Faruk Yurtseven are in the Bayern Munich squad, while Panatinaikos, coached by Ergin Ataman, is on loan from Furkan Korkmaz from Baskonia, and Onur Alp Bitim is on loan from Fenerbahçe.
In the Euroleage, until this season, the league was dominated by 2 Spanish teams Real Madrid and Barcelona, 2 Turkish teams Fenerbahçe and Efes Anadolu, 2 Greek teams Olimpiakos and Panatinaikos, and French Monaco and Maccabi. Last season, two Greek teams, Fenerbahçe and Real Madrid, qualified for the final of the 4th, and Olympiakos won the final by beating Real.
In the 2024 – 2025 season, we are watching a league process in which very interesting results are obtained and a very surprising points table is formed.
When I share some of the results from last week’s competitions before the 17th week matches to be played tonight, it will be clear how open to surprises, enjoyable and challenging the league is.
Fenerbahçe, which was the leader until the 11th week, could only win one of its next 5 matches and fell to 6th place. Moreover, in the last two weeks, they lost to Monaco (1) 99-69 at home and to Barcelona (9) 90-73 in the away game in which 1st guard Vade Baldwin was injured. (A change of coach may be on the agenda, Jaras may appear to be on the agenda!) Real Madrid, which disappointed all basketball fans this season and fell to 13th place in the league, showed that it was still looking forward to the finals despite the negativities of the previous weeks by beating Paris, the surprise team of the league, which entered the week as the leader, 96-85 on the road. Let me state again that while Real Madrid had only 1 defeat last season as of this week, they were defeated 9 times this season!
Last year, BKT won the EuroCup and qualified for the EuroLeague and came to the top with the positive basketball they played, surprising Paris Basketball with the defeats they suffered in the last two weeks. Before this week’s defeat by Real, they lost to Asvel (15), from the bottom of the league, in the French derby last week. Asvel continued to surprise this week by beating Partizan. Among the notable match results were the 10th ranked Red Star team beating the 3rd ranked Olympiakos and Efes Anadolu’s former coach Ergin Ataman’s Panatinaikos with a score of 93-67.
Barcelona (9), Real Madrid (13), one of the regulars of the finals, and Maccabi, one of the best teams of the past, are in the 16th place with only 4 wins. The top ranks are shared by Monaco, Paris, Olympiakos, Zalgiris Kaunas, Bayer Munich, Fenerbahçe and Efes Anadolu, Panatinaikos, Barcelona and Milan, respectively. Monaco’s place in the league is not a surprise, but the Munich team, which we are accustomed to seeing in the lower group of the league in previous seasons, together with the other German team Berlin, is performing great this season with Fenerbahçe’s former players Booker and Edwards. Kaunas, the representative of the basketball country Lithuania, and Milan, carried by the veteran Mitrovic, are among the successful teams of the league this year.
One of our teams, Efes Anadolu, started to keep form, Larkin also returned and they rose to the 7th place. One of the disappointing teams of the season is Ergin Ataman’s Panatinaikos, which is currently in the 8th place in the league. In fact, I think that Panatinaikos, which has a very large and qualified squad, can overcome the crisis despite everything and become one of the most important candidates for the final four.
The win-loss difference between these teams in the top 10 is only 2, let me repeat in writing, only two. In other words, it is a great league worth watching, more competitive than ever and open to surprises.
