Euroleague: Three spots remain to be decided

What day 1 of Week 9 of the Euroleague regular season lacked in drama, day 2 certainly made up for it. Friday saw two uneven scores, with Anadolu Efes vs. Caja Laboral at 76:91, and Panathinaikos vs. Fenerbahce 69:55, but the rest were nail-biters.

Lievtuvos Rytas hosted Brose Baskets in a critical Group A match with a Top 16 spot available. Lievtuvos won the match, but as the seconds ticked down both coaches had to plan strategies to keep the score differential in their favor for tie breaker purposes. Lievutos had built an eight point advantage, but after a first made free throw and a miss, John Goldsberry grabbed the rebound and tossed it up as the buzzer when off, falling through the cords to still give Lievutos the win, but Brose now wins the tie breaker.

Elan Chalon took Top 16 qualifier Montepaschi Siena into and extra frame and picked up a thrilling victory in their last home game of the season.

Union Olimpija gave their fans something to cheer about, even though they are out of Top 16 contention, with a come-from-behind win. Khimki was up by four with 35 seconds left, but a pair of missed free throws set up the hosts for a final shot. Klemen Prepelic took advantage of that situation and dropped in a three-ball at the buzzer to give Olimpija a two-point victory.

EA7 squandered a golden opportunity on Friday to move on to the Top 16 by losing to Kalgiris with multiple missed shots late.

Playoff Picture:
Group A
Real Madrid, Panathinaikos and Khimki have all qualified for the Top 16.

The fourth spot is between Fenerbahce and Cantu and it all comes down to their week 10 match-up. If Fenerbahce wins, they move on with a better record than both Cantu and Union. If Fenerbahce loses, they would have the same record as Cantu, but Cantu wins the tie breaker by having won both regular season games. Union has the same record as Cantu has, but has no shot at moving on, even if they win and Fenerbahce loses giving all three teams 4-6 records. In that scenario, the first tie breaker is the records of the three tied teams with the others. If Cantu beats Fenerbahce and Union beats Real Madrid, Cantu would have a 3-1 record in the three-way matches, and Fenerbahce and Union would both have 2-2 records. So the bottom line in Group A is the winner of Fenerbahce-Cantu gets a Top 16 spot.

Group B
Maccabi, Unicaja, Montepaschi and Alba Berlin are in.

Group C
Zalgiris, Olympiacos and Efes are in.

If Armani beats Olympiacos and Cedevita beats Caja, Armani is is. If Armani wins and Caja wins, Caja is in on the tie breaker by beating Armani twice in the regular season. If Armani and Caja lose, there’s a three-way tie for the spot and Cedevita would go on due to having a 3-1 record against the other two.

Group D
Barcelona, CSKA and Besiktas are in.

Partizan, Brose and Lietuvos have 2-7 records heading into Week 10. Partizan travels to Bamberg to take on Brose, so the loser of that game is out. Lietuvos travels to Istanbul to square off with Besiktas. If Lietuvos and Brose win, Brose wins the tie breaker due to the last second shot in Friday’s game. If Lietuvos and Partizan win, Lietuvos is in due to the team’s splitting the regular season games and Lietuvos having a greater basket difference in the tie breaker.