MIES (Switzerland) - Igokea are entering the business end of what could be the club's best-ever season.  Having won six of the last ten Championships in Bosnia and Herzegovina, they have been utterly dominant domestically - especially when you add the last six straight domestic cup titles to the list. Where this season stands out so far is the standings in Europe and the ABA League. Dragan Bajic's squad sit second in the ABA League - on track for their best finish since 2012/13 - and after a vital win in Latvia over VEF Riga, they are very much in the hunt for a place in the Basketball Champions League Final 8. This is already the first trip to the postseason in Europe for the team from Laktasi, and it seems they aren't ready to step off the rollercoaster just yet. 

Stats and The Story So far...

Drawn in Group G for the Regular Season and matched up against Hapoel Jerusalem, Turk Telekom, and newcomers Limoges, Igokea were undoubtedly minnows in a pond full of sharks. If we had evaluated the teams in the group based on European pedigree, their chances of progressing from the group looked slim to none. Basketball doesn't work that way though. Igokea turned the Laktasi Sports Hall into a fortress, going unbeaten at home during the Regular Season, and as a result, progressed to the Play-Offs at the expense of BCL giants Hapoel Jerusalem. Those three home victories were no fluke either. In the ABA League this season, the likes of Partizan, Zvezda, and Cedevita Olimpija have all failed to win in Laktasi. In the two Play-Off games so far, we have, however,  seen an inverse mirror image with Lenovo Tenerife beating Igokea at home before Edin Atic and Anthony Clemmons led the team to the win on the road at VEF Riga. 

The data viz below plots Igokea's season on a game by game basis for all of Dean Oliver's "Four Factors" and also on the last slide, we tracked the actual number of Igokea's possessions in each game with the rolling average marked as Pace. 

Although the eight games they have played so far are a small sample size, we would usually expect to see some kind of pattern or statistical consistency in the games that Igokea have won. In reality, we don't see any immediately clear patterns for any of the Four Factors. An example of this would be the last win in Latvia where Igokea recorded their lowest offensive rebound percentage of the season at 19.2% and also got to the line less frequently than any of their previous games with a free throw rate of 0.17. 

The one area where we do see some kind of pattern is pace. If we filter for Igokea's home games alone we see an average pace of 69.3 possessions per game vs 72.7  on the road. This is again the case if we look at their wins and losses. In the games that Igokea have won their average pace has been 70 vs 72 in losses. It seems that slow and steady wins the race for Igokea. Now, you may be reading this and thinking it doesn't sound like a huge difference and across eight games it isn't a huge deviation. At least the difference of 2-3 possessions per game is unlikely to be the primary difference between winning and losing. But when it comes to pace, the difference between AEK, the slowest team in the BCL at 68.3 and Casademont Zaragoza at 76.3, isn't especially dramatic across the entire league. It's not just this season either, the difference between top to bottom was just seven possessions per game last season as well.

X's and O's

What makes the difference between Igokea's pace scores more interesting is a quick look at the way Dragan Bajic has this team playing. They play in a style that is possibly best described as methodical. No team with shot makers like Anthony Clemmons, Steven Gray, and Edin Atic could ever be described as boring, so using the word methodical shouldn't be taken to evoke that kind of imagery. But this is a team that is going to play at the tempo they want and hunt the matchup they want, when they want to hunt it. It's almost impossible to rush or fluster them.

The video below is a collection of clips of Igokea's highest volume offensive system.  In early offense you will regularly see them flow straight into a 5-out, pick-and-roll "Motion Offense".  After the initial "Drag Screen", if they don't have an advantage the ball reverses to the trailing center. The next trigger for action on the weak side is the catch. As soon as the center receives the ball, there is a screening action on the other side of the floor. The first clip perfectly highlights the stubbornness with which Igokea stick to their tempo. Tenerife slowed the reversal pass with a hedge on the pick-and-roll but it made no difference. As soon as (not before, not after) the ball reached the center, they just picked up the flow again.

The tempo they play at also allows Igokea to be tactically very deliberate and find ways to cause indecision in their opponents' defensive schemes. In this next clip we see them runnings a "Horns" set with a back screen for the roller, or "Spain Pick-and-Roll". Notice how they attacked the space cleared by the player (Steven Gray) setting the back screen. 

The next clip is just a few possessions later in the same game. This time Steven Gray had swapped corners and set the back screen from the other side of the floor. By doing that they created an "Empty Corner" and used it create a low post isolation for Nikola Jovanovic. Also, again we see the stubbornness to stick to their own tempo when the defense is disruptive enough to break the flow of actions.

For a final example of this assertive and deliberate tempo, we can look at another high volume set from Dragan Bajic's Horns package. This time the idea is to get into a "Flex" action from the initial Horns set.  The only twist on this occasion is that Igokea were coming out of a timeout and instead of Anthony Clemmons receiving a down screen to come back out to the perimeter for the ball, this time Clemmons set a back screen and used that to get open. VEF Riga were equally disruptive in this clip and switched the back screen. The outcome was that Clemmons just took his time on the catch, recognized he had a quickness advantage after the switch and made the play.

One area of the game where this team can be at their most fluent is also where they are amongst the most efficient teams in the BCL: out of bounds plays (specifically from the sideline). Igokea score 1.1 points per play from sideline out of bounds plays, which ranks them fifth in the BCL. The play in the video below starts with an action you will see almost every team in world basketball run: a zipper cut into a middle pick-and-roll. The timing of the "Hammer" screen for Atic on the weakside was just too good for the defense. 

On the defensive end, Bajic and Igokea like to mix things up. They used zone defenses more than any other team in the BCL so far this season and with great results. They concede just 0.8 points per play when playing their 3-2 zone defense. Only Zaragoza are more efficient and don't use zones anywhere near as often. 

Key Players

A total of six players have averaged over 20 minutes per game for Igokea; Anthony Clemmons, Marko Josilo, Edin Atic, Jackie Carmichael, Dalibor Ilic, and Antabia Waller in his four games for the club. Since his arrival, Steven Gray has played more than 18 minutes per game. Nikola Jovanovic, Stefan Pot, Darko Talic, and Stefan Fundic have also played more than 12 minutes per game in the rotation.  All of the players listed are vital cogs in the rotation for Igokea but at this point in the season, two payers have surely put themselves in the running for BCL MVP if Dragan Bajic's squad can battle their way to the Final 8 in May.

Anthony Clemmons

Anthony Clemmons is not only the team's primary playmaking option averaging  4.4 assists but his shooting splits are absurd. 56.8% from 2-points, 50% from 3-points, and 91.7% from the line scoring 14.4 points per game in the process. Clemmons is strong, explosive and crafty. He is at his best using clever angles and his upper body strength to get wherever he wants in the pick-and-roll and there isn't a lob pass he can't throw. Plays like the Rondo ball-fake in the clip below are a clear sign of a player that is mastering their craft and enjoying the journey. 

Edin Atic

Edin Atic is arriving! His last brief affair in the BCL was with AEK in 2017/18 when he was just 19 years old. Now 24, Atic is playing with more confidence in each and every game. At 6'7" (2.01m) he has a legitimate wing skill-set offensively and the strength to bang around in the paint. 12.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists with shooting splits of 70% from 2-points(!!), 38% from 3-points and 51.4% overall from the field - those are some scary numbers. They aren't just numbers though, Atic is producing those numbers in performances that are winning games for Igokea in the Play-Offs.

We can't finish a section about Igokea's key players without talking about the frontcourt. Nikola Jovanovic and Jackie Carmichael are both averaging more than 10 points and regularly making huge plays for this team on both ends. Carmichael is also dishing out 2.3 assists per game and if we tracked screen assists in the BCL he'd be a solid bet to lead the table. The play in the clip below is a great example. Watch how he read the under on the screen for Clemmons, then as his partner snaked the ball screen to attack the drop, Carmichael then "Gortat Screens" his own defender again to prevent the help. Elite chemistry between Igokea's two stars.

Dalibor Ilic is not a player to sleep on either. At 6'9" (2.06m) and just 21 years of age, Ilic is growing rapidly into his first season of European competition. When you see plays like the lob catch in the clip below, it's time to realize that this is a name to get used to on the landscape of European hoops.

What's Next?

After losing at home to Lenovo Tenerife, progress to the Final 8 started to look like a reach. The road win against VEF Riga will have been good for confidence but the looming presence of San Pablo Burgos will be casting a huge shadow on the horizon. That is, however, what life in the BCL Play-Offs is all about. if you want to reach a Final 8 in this competition you need to find a way to win against the likes of Tenerife and Burgos.

Would many people expect Igokea to win a head to head against either of those two ACB giants? probably not. But then again, very few expected them to get passed Hapoel Jerusalem either. Then even if they do manage that feat, they would still have to win another game against VEF Riga, themselves also one of this season's surprise stories. Whatever you do though, don't write this Igokea squad off.