MIES (Switzerland) - The Regular Season and the Play-Ins are over, and it is now time to focus on the Round of 16. Four groups of four teams each, with the top two teams in each group moving onto the Quarter-Finals.

The Basketball Champions League Season 8 wastes no time, and the Round of 16 starts already next week. That gives us just enough time to introduce the four groups, answering the four crucial questions. Let's start with Group I.

		GAMES				GAME POINTS					POINTS
#	Team	P	W	L	%	For	Agt	+/-	FA	AA
1	Unicaja	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	SIG Strasbourg	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	Cholet Basket	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
4	Tofas Bursa	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Unicaja (Spain)

How did they get here?
Four wins, two defeats in Regular Season Group A, storming clear towards first place even before the last gameday.
Have they been here before?
Quarter-Finals in 2022, Semi-Finals in 2023... Logic would suggest a spot in the Final is next?
What's their biggest strenght?
Defense wins championships. Unicaja are holding opponents to 99.9 points per 100 possessions, making them one of the top-rated defenses in this season's Basketball Champions League.
What's their biggest weakness?
It was hard to find one, but Unicaja have struggled with shot selection offensively. They are at 54.2 percent in true shooting, second-worst team in the competition, trailing only MHP RIESEN Ludwigsburg.

SIG Strasbourg (France)

How did they get here?
Four wins, two defeats in Group E, edging out Pinar Karsiyaka in the battle for top spot in one of the closest groups of the Regular Season.
Have they been here before?
Quarter-Finals in 2018, 2022 and 2023, Semi-Finals in 2021. One of the rare teams to have played all eight BCL seasons, and they got stuck in the Regular Season just twice in their eight campaigns.
What's their biggest strength?
They were always known as the big, strong, physical force, with a lot of energy, but not a lot of shooting. Seasons are changing, SIG Strasbourg are currently the second-best three-point shooting team in the BCL at 41 percent shooting from beyond the arc.
What's their biggest weakness?
Amazingly, they are also the second-worst two-point shooting team in the league, hitting just 45.6 percent from inside the arc.

Cholet Basket (France)

How did they get here?
Three wins, three defeats in Regular Season Group C, doing just enough to get homecourt advantage in the Play-Ins against Banco di Sardegna Sassari. They lost the first one at home, but bounced back to win the next two games and move to the Round of 16.
Have they been here before?
First time they reach the Round of 16 in the BCL.
What's their biggest strength?
A guy called Tidjane Salaun. At 18 years of age, he is the youngest player to get 15+ points and 5+ rebounds in a BCL game since a certain Alperen Sengun did it in 2020. Salaun is also the second-youngest player to reach 100 BCL points, after Amar Sylla. The difference is, Sylla needed 14 games to reach that mark, Tidjane got it done in just nine games.
What's their biggest weakness?
They keep winning and avoiding elimination, but they actually have a negative Net Rating. Their offensive rating is -1.5 points lower than their defensive rating.

Tofas Bursa (Turkiye)

How did they get here?
They struggled so much in the Regular Season, and only a sweep over Igokea m:tel earned them a spot in the Play-Ins, but without  homecourt advantage. It did not matter, as Tofas won two road games in Thessaloniki, stunning PAOK mateco 2-1 to make it back to the sweet 16.
Have they been here before?
Round of 16 in 2021, Quarter-Finals in 2022, Play-Ins in 2023. They were inches away from making the Final Four in 2022, losing two Quarter-Final games to eventual winners Lenovo Tenerife by single-point margins.
What's their biggest strength?
The best offensive rating in BCL Season 8. They put up an absurd 117.5 points per 100 possessions, a crazy number for a team that went 0-4 against teams not named Igokea in the Regular Season. One key addition that explains their improvement? Marcus Denmon, who went over 20 points twice in the Play-Ins and is averaging 17.3 points per game since joining Tofas mid-season.
What's their biggest weakness?
Tofas allow 85.2 points per game. Part of it has to do with the high pace which they enjoy, but it's probably a tough pill to swallow knowing only Igokea, Sassari and BK Opava allowed more points per game than you.