ATHENS (Basketball Champions League) – One of the last clubs to join the inaugural edition of the Basketball Champions League, AEK Athens, is also among the most ambitious sides taking part in this year’s European competitions and head coach Jure Zdovc has absolutely no reason to conceal his team’s high expectations.

“It’s not a secret that our goal is to reach the Final Four, so we assume that we are one of the favourites in the competition,” the Slovenian legend told aekbc.gr. “The players and everybody who works at AEK has to adopt to this fact and perform under this kind of pressure.”

The Greek outfit, as well as Serbian powerhouse Partizan KK Belgrade and Polish champions Stelment Zielona Gora, were admitted to the Basketball Champions League on 19 August and formed a new pool in the Regular Season, Group E, together with Besiktas Sompo Japan Istanbul, Dinamo Sassari, MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg, Proximus Spirou Charleroi and Szolnoki Olaj.

“We are in a group with some very good teams,” Zdovc said. “I would say that these opponents are at the same level and probably even better than the ones we were going to play against in the Eurocup, but the advantage is that here the trips will be easier for us.

“There are some offensive-oriented, tough teams in Group E which are strong at their homecourt like Besiktas, Sassari or Zielona Gora. More or less every team in our group is of similar level, but to me Besiktas stands out a little bit because they have an excellent coach [Ufuk Sarica] and a big budget. Of course no team has taken its final shape yet, so we will have a much clearer picture later on.”

Coach Zdovc, who has been at the helm of AEK since the halfway point of last season, welcomed plenty of new faces on the roster during the summer. The Athenian side bolstered their frontcourt with Jawad Williams who had worked with Zdovc at Royal Halı Gaziantep and Josh Owens, who is coming off an excellent season at Umana Reyer Venezia. The American duo will share the center position and compliment former Greek international Loukas Mavrokefalidis in the frontline.

AEK have made additions to the perimeter as well, as they brought in combo guard Michael Dixon from CEZ Nymburk, Montenegrin international Nikola Ivanovic from Mega Leks and sharp-shooter Kostas Vasileiadis. The 32-year-old swingman is not the only Greek player have signed this off-season, as they also inked 21-year-old guard Giannoulis Larentzakis and teenage internationals Dionisis Skoulidas and Manolis Chatzidakis.

The Greek team commenced training camp at the weekend in the Slovenian mountain resort of Kranjska Gora and will play their first warm-up game on 29 August against Khimki Moscow Region, while they will face Krka Novo Mesto and Anadolu Efes Istanbul in the first week of September.