By Aris Barkas / barkas@eurohoops.net
The regular season of the BKT EuroCup ends with a bang.
In front of a sellout crowd of 10,000 at BT Arena in Cluj-Napoca, U-BT Cluj-Napoca, which has turned heads under coach Mihai Silvasan, will face Aris Thessaloniki Betsson, a traditional Greek power in search of new glory.
The Greeks are also expected to have 500 traveling fans on their side to make things interesting, and this is already shaping up to be the most intriguing game of the 2025-26 EuroCup regular season.
The rise of Cluj-Napoca
While this version of the club was established in 2006, the team and basketball tradition in the city dates back to 1947, when the basketball team was part of the Universitatea Cluj multi-sports club.
Under that incarnation, the club won three Romanian League titles and one Romanian Cup. However, when the basketball team split from the parent sports club at the beginning of the 2000s, the story changed.
Since then, seven league titles and six cups have been won, making Cluj-Napoca a local powerhouse that eventually became too big for the domestic league and began competing in the ABA League at the start of this season.
Still, the club remains vitally important in the Romanian basketball ecosystem, operating a basketball academy that currently includes more than 600 registered junior athletes between the ages of 7 and 20.
At the forefront of the club’s success is a local hero, former player turned coach Mihai Silvasan. Silvasan is synonymous with the modern history of the team, having worn the club’s jersey as a player from 2002 to 2015 before becoming an assistant coach in 2016 and head coach in 2017.
He has won five league titles on the bench (2017, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), creating a team that transcended national borders, left its mark on continental competitions and continues to aim higher.
The first Greek dynasty strikes back
Aris BC is a different animal. In the 1980s, it was the first Greek powerhouse to leave its mark on European competitions, with Greek legends Nick Galis and Panagiotis Giannakis on the roster.
The team was partly responsible for the basketball boom in the country, having won 10 Greek Championship titles, eight Greek Cups, as well as a Saporta Cup, a Korac Cup and a EuroCup Challenge trophy.
While Aris remained a major brand name, in the 1990s it took a back seat behind Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens and Olympiacos Piraeus, faced a ton of financial trouble and for years could not live up to the club’s legacy.
That changed this summer after the purchase of the club by U.S.-based investment fund RHC Group. Founder Richard Hsiao, a close friend of Giannis Antetokounmpo, wanted to invest in European basketball.
Aris became the vehicle for those ambitions, with the BKT EuroCup serving as the prime showcase for the club. However, every start can be bumpy. Aris has already gone through a coaching change, replacing Serbian coach Bogdan Karaicic with Croatian Igor Milicic, along with its share of roster reshuffling. On Wednesday night, they fight for their EuroCup life on the road.
So get your popcorn ready and be prepared. No matter who wins – even if the home side is the de facto favorite – there will be tension and drama on and off the court as two clubs with high ambitions and great expectations collide.