A return to the good times for Croatian basketball.
In the last, 10th round of the first phase of the basketball Euroleague competition, in Group B Cedevita was defeated 92-70 in a match against Laboral Kutxa in Vitoria. However, Cedevita has already secured its place in the Top 16 a week ago, so the match against Laboral Kutxa was just an opportunity to gain a better position for the next phase of the competition. Unfortunately, it turned out that the matches played in recent weeks have mentally drained the team, which played very badly, especially when it came to playing in defence. Marko Arapović with 12 points was the best scorer for Cedevita, while Fabien Causer scored 20 points for Laboral Kutxa, reports Index.hr on December 19, 2015.
Cedevita finished the competition in Group B at the fourth position with four wins and six defeats, while Laboral Kutxa, with six wins and four defeats, secured the second place. This means that these two teams will again play against each other in Group E of the Top 16 phase, where their rivals will also be Fenerbahce, Darussafaka and Panathinaikos.
Their remaining three opponents in Group E were decided after the matches played on Friday night, and now it is known that in the Top 16 Cedevita will play against Turkish clubs Fenerbahce, Anadolu Efes and Darussafaka, the Russian team Lokomotiv Kuban, Panathinaikos from Greece, Unicaja from Spain and Crvena Zvezda from Serbia.
Group F will include three Spanish representatives, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Laboral Kutxa, CSKA Moscow and Khimki from Russia, Olympiacos from Greece, Zalgiris from Lithuania and Brose Baskets from Germany.
The first of 14 rounds of TOP 16 phase of competition will be played on 29 and 30 December. The top four teams from each group will win a place in the Euroleague quarterfinals.
