By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
These two teams just met ten days ago in the ACB. It took an overtime period to separate them. Eventually, Iberostar Tenerife ran out 91-86 winners but in reality, the game provided even fewer clues as to who might progress to the Semi-Finals.
What is in store for Thursday night? You can find out in the preview below, as featured on championsleague.basketball:
Casademont Zaragoza
Zaragoza are in the unique position of being the only team coming into Final 8 with a new head coach. Porfi Fisac is out and incoming is Diego Ocampo. After learning the ropes as an assistant under Pedro Martinez, Joan Plaza, and Aito Reneses, Ocampo is a graduate of some of Spain’s finest tacticians. He has a challenge to build a new sense of team chemistry having never coached a Zaragoza game in the Basketball Champions League but in his favor is the roster continuity.
The major change to this Zaragoza roster is the outgoing Carlos Alocen. This year’s best young player has gone back to parent club Real Madrid after an excellent season running the show from the point guard position. The way Zaragoza have moved to replace him, or perhaps not directly replace him could give us some clues to how the style of play may change a bit. Incoming is Rasheed Sulaimon from JDa Dijon. Sulaimon had an outstanding BCL season, averaging over 13 assists and 3 assists on over 40% from 3-point and 50% shooting overall. Sulaimon is amongst the best shooting guards in the BCL, no question.
With Sulaimon, Dylan Ennis, and DJ Seeley, Zaragoza are fully stacked with guards that can score. Whereas Alocen leans more towards the traditional point guard style, Ocampo has only Rodrigo San Miguel that could be described as an out and out point guard. Ennis is likely to be the player that can take over the lion’s share of the playmaking responsibility. He leads the team in points and assists with 12.4 points and 4.4 assists. In transition Ennis is excellent at pushing the pace to create and in the pick-and-roll, Ennis is as good as any at Final 8 when it comes to seeing over the top to pick out the right pass.
Everywhere else on the roster we know exactly what to expect from this roster. Nicolas Brussino was a finalist last year and is one of the competitions most lethal snipers. Robin Benzing at the power forward is one of the five players that averaged over 10 and had one of the best shooting nights we have seen in the BCL in Dijon. Check the video below to hear him breaking it down for you.
The frontcourt firepower was possibly Zaragoza’s biggest strength all season and they have all the major players here to do the damage. Hlinason and Thompson are joined by Sagaba Konate. Only Javier Justiz will be unable to play.
Style of Play
Zaragoza were amongst the best defensive teams in the BCL with a Defensive Rating of 102.7 points conceded per 100 possessions – good for fourth in the league. This was, in large part, thanks to their ability to protect the rim, where they blocked a fifth-best 9.1% of their opponent’s shots. Teams also shot the second-lowest, Effective Field Goal Percentage of 48.5% against Zaragoza. On the offensive end, the team from Aragon stood out statistically on the glass. They pulled down 33.4% of their own misses, good for third in the BCL. This domination of the opposition’s paint also manifested in Zaragoza shooting 76.8% at the rim, the highest percentage of any team in the Final 8.
It’s hard to know what to expect style-wise from Ocampo’s Zaragoza as we haven’t seen Zaragoza play under him in the BCL. However, there are some staple actions that were used to make the most of this roster that we have already seen Zaragoza execute well in the ACB this season. With the quality of spot-up shooters and scoring guards they have, this “Spain” pick-and-roll action from the Regular Season was an easy action to incorporate for Ocampo.
Key Player
Everything points towards Dylan Ennis. The Canadian has come up big for Zaragoza whenever they needed him this year. He was the driving force behind the Round of 16 wins over Lietkabelis and who could forget that buzzer-beater to beat Brindisi on the final day of the Regular Season. Ennis is clearly a man for the big occasion.