Americas
The semifinals finished in Brazil as Sampaio evened their series with a win over Campinas on Monday and then won again on Wednesday to advance. The other series continued on Tuesday and Santo Andre prevented Araraquara from quickly closing out at home, but the top seed overcame a sluggish start on Thursday to reach the finals.
Chihuahua hosted the first two games in the finals in Mexico, starting Monday with Monterrey flipping the homecourt advantage immediately. The top seed bounced back right away on Tuesday, setting themselves up for three games on the road. They won decisively on Friday and then extended that lead further on Saturday.
It was the other bye week in the lower group in Uruguay so just the top teams played this weekend. Aguada defeated Yale on Saturday along with Defensor Sporting’s win over Hebraica Macabi. Malvin rallied in the second half against 25 de Agosto to remain undefeated.
Play continued on Monday in Puerto Rico with Manati playing in Lares for the second time in three days and it was the same result with Kaela Hilaire being the star again for the visitors with another 30 points. On Tuesday, Hatillo’s strong start continued with a win at Moca while Carolina managed to grind out a win over Santurce. Isabela matched them with a win over Lares and the other game on Wednesday was Manati’s easy triumph over Morovis. The teams met again on Friday with Manati down a star, but still winning. Saturday’s game saw Santurce win at Lares. Isabela suffered their first loss of the season on Sunday against Moca.
Australia
The four remaining division champions were crowned in NBL1, starting Friday with the Cockburn Cougars taking the West over the Willetton Tigers. On Saturday, Amy Atwell’s 36 points helped Bendigo get past Waverley, which got 31 points from Maddi Utti, to win the South and stay undefeated. The Sturt Sabres could not match them, falling to the Norwood Flames in the Central final. The top seed also fell in the East division when the Norths Bears defeated the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles.
The top division was the last one to start the playoffs in Big V and the semifinals started with no surprises even with teams finishing lower in the standings hosting the openers. Wyndham stayed undefeated with a win over the McKinnon Cougars and the Bulleen Boomers won against the Sherbrooke Suns. In the middle division, the Western Port Steelers were looking to make a run from the five seed, forcing overtime before falling to the Bellarine Storm. In the bottom division, semifinals continued on Saturday with deciding games on Sunday if necessary. The Wallan Panthers made sure that they would not need another game, defeating the Blackburn Vikings behind 30 points from Kylah Collins. Surf Coast had lost their home game, but won the first game on the road before Gippsland won the final game.
New Zealand
Another week of play started on Wednesday with an easy Pouakai win over the Hoiho. They won again on Friday, holding off the Whai, which played Jade Kirisome over 40 minutes between the two games again. That lineup strategy may have backfired on Saturday when the Kahu found themselves in a battle and fielding IImar’I Thomas and Krystal Leger-Walker for 37:09 in the main game having already played the reserve game. The team ran out of steam late and Chrislyn Carr had 32 points to lead the Queens to victory. Kirisome played over 40 minutes again on Sunday in a pair of wins for the Whai with Ashten Prechtel collecting 20 rebounds for the Hoiho in the loss.
Europe
FIBA Europe conducted both the EuroLeague and EuroCup draws on Wednesday so participating teams found about the teams that they will be playing. Three EuroLeague qualifying matchups were drawn as well as the two groups. The twelve groups of EuroCup were drawn with the winners of their three qualifiers and the teams dropping down from EuroLeague still to be determined. All qualifiers will be two game series with the home team in the second game listed first below. The regular season is fourteen games in EuroLeague with the top four teams advancing while the regular season is six games in EuroCup with the top two teams in each group advancing automatically along with the eight best performing third place teams.
EuroLeague
Group A: Fenerbahce (Turkey), Schio (Italy), Valencia (Spain), Lyon (France), Lublin (Poland), Zaragoza (Spain), winner DVTK (Hungary) vs. London Lions (Great Britain), winner Riga (Latvia) vs. Sepsi Sfantu Gheorghe (Romania)
Group B: Avenida (Spain), USK Praha (Czech Republic), Cukurova (Turkey), Villeneuve-d’Ascq (France), Landes (France), Virtus Bologna (Italy), Gyor (Hungary), winner Polkowice (Poland) vs. Besiktas (Turkey)
EuroCup
Group A: Charleville-Mezieres (France), Sedis (Spain), Brno (Czech Republic), winner Eleftheria Moschatou (Greece) vs. Universitatea Cluj (Romania)
Group B: Girona (Spain), Gorzow (Poland), Piestanske Cajky (Slovakia), Diddeleng (Luxembourg)
Group C: Galatasaray (Turkey), Angers (France), Kibirkstis (Lithuania), Constanta (Romania)
Group D: Lattes Montpellier (France), Gernika (Spain), Ramat Hasharon (Israel), Zaglebie Sosnowiec (Poland)
Group E: loser Polkowice (Poland) vs. Besiktas (Turkey), Mechelen (Belgium), Panathinaikos (Greece), Slavia Banska Bystrica (Slovakia)
Group F: loser Riga (Latvia) vs. Sepsi Sfantu Gheorghe (Romania), Olympiacos (Greece), Kayseri (Turkey), winner Ruzomberok (Slovakia) vs. Ostrava (Czech Republic)
Group G: Elitzur Ramla (Israel), Namur (Belgium), Benfica (Portugal), Caledonia Gladiators (Great Britain)
Group H: Bourges (France), KP Brno (Czech Republic), Grengewald (Luxembourg), winner Uniao Sportiva (Portugal) vs. Antalya (Turkey)
Group I: loser DVTK (Hungary) vs. London Lions (Great Britain), Braine (Belgium), Keltern (Germany), GDESSA-Barreiro (Portugal)
Group J: Reyer Venezia (Italy), PEAC (Hungary), Bursa (Turkey), Ragusa Dubrovnik (Croatia)
Group K: Szekszard (Hungary), Estudiantes (Spain), Dinamo Sassari (Italy), Chomutov (Czech Republic)
Group L: Fribourg (Switzerland), Arka Gdynia (Poland), Roche (France), Emlak Konut (Turkey)
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