By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
This year’s race towards the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Playoffs and the Play-In Showdown has been more unpredictable than ever.
While there’s finally some distance from the 12th spot toward the play-in line, even if mathematically nothing is decided, there’s also a clear distinction between the teams that currently occupy the top six spots in the standings and the rest.
There’s an old EuroLeague adage about winning at home and making it far and this has not changed.
And while, especially this season, anybody can win on the road and nothing is taken for granted, building a fortress on your home court pays off.
A near-perfect home record
Real Madrid (22-3), FC Barcelona (17-8), Virtus Segafredo Bologna (16-9), Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens (15-10), AS Monaco (15-10) and Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul (15-10) are the teams leading the race at this point.
Real Madrid seems to be – until proven otherwise – in a league of its own, however, there’s a striking similarity in the result of all six teams.
So far they have a combined 66-9 home record at home, which translates to a whopping 88.8% winning percentage.
To be exact, those teams have lost four home games over the last 17 rounds, meaning since November 15, and one of those results was decided on a buzzer-beater by one of the top six teams, Panathinaikos, over another, in this specific case Monaco through Marius Grigonis’s unforgettable shot.
So far in 2024, those six teams have registered just one home loss, in Round 18 when Fenerbahce fell to Crvena Zvezda on January 2.
The numbers simply don’t lie as you can see:
|
Team |
Home record |
|
Real Madrid |
13-0 |
|
FC Barcelona |
12-1 |
|
Fenerbahce |
11-1 |
|
Virtus Bologna |
11-1 |
|
Panathinaikos |
10-3 |
|
Monaco |
9-3 |
It can’t get much better than this
Real Madrid remains perfect at home, Barcelona was defeated just once by EA7 Emporio Armani Milan in mid-December and Virtus lost the first game of the season to Zalgiris Kaunas.
The same happened with Panathinaikos, which started the season with a home defeat to eternal rival Olympiacos Piraeus and also lost to Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv in Round 4 and to Real Madrid in Round 13.
So how important is not losing at home? The next six teams in the standings have a combined 49-26 home record (65.3%).
The only team with a better home record than any of the top six teams is Partizan Mozzart Belgrade, which is currently 11th and boasts a 9-2 record at home.
Olympiacos is seventh with a 9-4 home record, and Maccabi is also 9-4 at home, currently tied with Valencia Basket (8-5) and Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz (7-6) for the eighth-ninth and 10th spots in the standings, while 12th-placed Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade has a 7-5 record.
With the season entering its last leg and nine rounds left, it’s obvious that winning at home – or having already lost ground on it – will end up being the difference between making it to the playoffs, entering the play-in, or missing the postseason.