2013-14 Eurocup Teams and Competition Format Announced

A new era of Eurocup expansion in terms of participation, quantity of games and geographical reach started today with the announcement of the teams that will fill the competition's 2013-14 regular season groups. The list consists of 41 teams who will be joined by seven more in late October, following their participation in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Qualifying Rounds, for a total of 48 competing in the Eurocup Regular Season. 


The list of teams shows the tremendous strides that the Eurocup has taken in recent seasons. The 2013-14 edition will be played in at least 21 countries. A minimum of 10 national champions from those countries will participate in the Eurocup, with the possibility of as many as three more joining the competition after the Euroleague qualifying rounds. The 2013-14 Eurocup features three former champions - Valencia Basket (2003, 2010), Hapoel Migdal Jerusalem (2004) and Unics Kazan (2011) and two past runners-up (Alba Berlin 2010 and Bilbao Basket 2013). Additionally, the competition's map of geographical coverage is wide as ever, going Bilbao, Spain in the west to Kazan, Russia in the east, Loimaa, Finland in the north and Jerusalem, Israel, in the south. 

The 2013-14 Eurocup format has changed, too. The teams will be grouped geographically into eight groups of six each in a regular season that starts October 16. The top three teams in each group proceed to a new Last 32 phase, beginning January 8, when they will be joined by the eight Euroleague teams that did not qualify for that competition’s Top 16. The Last 32 will consist of eight groups of four teams, half of which will advance to the Last 16, which begins March 5. From that point, the teams will play two-game, single elimination series: eighthfinals start March 5, quarterfinals on March 19 and semifinals on April 2. The two surviving teams will also play a home-and-away series on their own courts that replaces the single-game final of last season. Game 1 of the finals will be on May 1 and Game 2 on May 7.