May 10, 2021 by Euroleague.net Print
The city of Cologne has seen its fair share of great basketball over the years. Saturn Cologne captured four German League championships in the 1980s. In March 2000, Koelnarena set a European basketball record when 20,000 fans packed the stands for a German league game. And in a few weeks, the same venue, now known as Lanxess Arena, will host the 2021 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four.
When it comes to the longest extended period of basketball greatness in the city, there is no question that it was the seven-season run RheinEnergie Cologne had as a force in German basketball and a club to keep an eye on across the continent. RheinEnergie helped launch the careers of several future EuroLeague stars with well-respected head coaches on the bench.
May 06, 2021 by Euroleague.net Print
Anadolu Efes Istanbul prepares for its second-straight and fourth Final Four appearance in club history after reaching the championship game in 2019. It s been a wild ride for Coach Ergin Ataman s squad, which was last in the league in 2018, but has been among the EuroLeague elite ever since. Efes s 49 combined victories between the 2019-20 season, which was aborted due to the COVID-19 pandemic with Efes alone atop the table, and this season are tied with FC Barcelona for the most in the league in that span.
Efes reached its first Final Four in 2000 in Thessaloniki, Greece, and was back the following year before suffering through an 18-year absence until its next Final Four. In that time, Efes reached the EuroLeague Playoffs five times and took its series the distance – to a winner-takes-all Game 3 or Game 5 – three times. It finally ended the drought in 2019 with a Game 5 victory over Barcelona t