By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
The Basketball Champions League announced AEK’s RaiQuan Gray as the Most Valuable of the Season X, powered by Ameresco SUNEL, Round of 16, on Thursday.
Per the press release: “With the Season X Quarter-Finals just around the corner in the Basketball Champions League, powered by Ameresco SUNEL, it is time to honor the Most Valuable Player of the Round of 16.
With six incredible games behind him, and AEK BC being the only 6-0 team in this phase, RaiQuan Gray was named the MVP of the Round of 16.
RaiQuan Gray has been named the Round of 16 MVP! 👑#BasketballCL pic.twitter.com/pPzNJvodxD
— Basketball Champions League (@BasketballCL) March 26, 2026
Earlier this season, Chris Silva was the MVP of the Group Phase, while Brandon Jefferson picked up the MVP of the Play-Ins award.
The 26-year-old point forward Gray has been the difference maker – quite literally – for AEK this season, as the team has an incredible +138 advantage with him on the floor across the 12 games played so far.
With an efficiency rating of 18.7 per game in Season X, he is the leader among remaining players in the competition, while he switched through gears in the Round of 16, taking that number to 21.0 per game.
He narrowly edged out Rytas Vilnius’ Ignas Sargiunas, Galatasaray MCT Technic’s Errick McCollum, Asisa Joventut’s Ante Tomic, and his teammate Frank Bartley in the battle for MVP honors in this round.
Bartley, as you may have imagined, was the first one to congratulate him.
“Yessir, that’s my guy! I’m super happy for him!” Bartley told us after learning Gray was the MVP.
Turns out, RaiQuan Gray’s decision to stay with AEK after last season’s Final Four was key for Frank Bartley to join the club over the summer, and embark on one of the most dominant journeys in a decade of BCL action.
Bartley and Gray led AEK to an 11-1 record ahead of their Quarter-Finals matchup with the Final Four hosts, Asisa Joventut.
“It was very important for him to come back to AEK. It was one of the biggest reasons that I decided to come here. He got a taste of the Final Four last year and they came up short, and I know he was really upset about it, but also excited about having the chance to get back there and win it. He talked about how crazy that whole experience was,” Bartley said.
The part about Gray being upset? RaiQuan was upset at RaiQuan, it seems.
“I feel like I could’ve had a bigger impact on the team, you know,” Gray remembers the 2025 Final Four, held in Athens.
Talking to us earlier this season, RaiQuan added:
“This club has been good to me this past year and also this past season also. It’s been good. That’s been one of my goals coming back, quietly I would say, just to maybe get a couple accolades on my resume, but my main thing is the team’s success.”
One cannot go without the other, as a dominant Gray would certainly not be in MVP discussions if AEK weren’t a dominant team, too.
And AEK wouldn’t be a dominant team without Gray making every possession count on the floor, as evident by the aforementioned +138, leading the +/- stat in the whole BCL this season.
“He’s a mismatch nightmare at his position,” Bartley explains Gray’s +/- impact.
“If you’re too big, he can go right past you, and if you’re too little, he can play right through you. His IQ and feel for the game makes him stand out, though. Always makes the right passes and knows how to get to his spots with minimal dribbles. Just an overall tough guard. And on the defensive side, he can cover ‘one’ through ‘five’ and hold his own,” Frank added.
One of the most important bits about that impact is coming back for the second season with coach Dragan Sakota. The veteran playcaller trusts Gray on the floor more and more with each game, and the connection was evident throughout this 11-1 run in Season X.
“I think I see the game kind of like a coach in a sense, or a point guard I would say. And it’s an advantage for me and helps my teammates also, you know get those guys in the right spot and tell them what I’m seeing,” Gray offered.
The forward has averaged 13.9 points on 54.3 percent shooting, while grabbing 5.9 rebounds, dishing out 3.9 assists, and stealing 1.7 possessions per game for the season.
In the Round of 16, those numbers improved to 16.2 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 4.2 assists, with 1.3 steals per game.
RaiQuan Gray will receive his MVP award in person in Athens on Wednesday, April 1, just before tip-off in Game 1 of the Quarter-Finals series against Asisa Joventut.”