MIES (Switzerland) - Season X of the Basketball Champions League, powered by Ameresco SUNEL reached its crucial point, as the Round of 16 ended and the teams are getting ready for the Quarter-Finals and the Final Four.
We've seen plenty of great individual performances, and these five players were named to the Team of the Round of 16: Ignas Sargiunas (Rytas Vilnius), Errick McCollum (Galatasaray MCT Technic), Frank Bartley (AEK BC), RaiQuan Gray (AEK BC) and Ante Tomic (Asisa Joventut).
Ignas Sargiunas picked a perfect timing to play his best basketball of the season, pouring in 18.3 points across the last three games of the Round of 16.
With him shooting lights out, partnered with Simonas Lukosius, Rytas managed not only to avoid elimination, but to win the group and earn home court advantage in their Quarter-Finals series vs. ERA Nymburk.
Errick McCollum was the reason Galatasaray MCT Technic also advanced from that group, with the shooting guard reaching double figures in all six games of this phase.
Three of those were games in the 20+ category, with McCollum getting to within two games of taking the all-time lead as the player with the most 20+ point games in BCL history.
Ahead of the Quarter-Finals where Galatasaray take on La Laguna Tenerife, Levi Randolph is the leader with 18 games with 20 points or more, McCollum has 16 such appearances.
While McCollum was impressive in scoring, he still wasn't the top scorer of this stage. Frank Bartley averaged 22.0 points per game for AEK in the Round of 16, leading them to a perfect 6-0 record.
Bartley made 23 three-pointers in this phase, compared to just 14 in his first six BCL games this season. AEK earned home court advantage for the Quarter-Finals with a last gameday win over ALBA BERLIN in Germany, where Bartley set his season-high with 29 points.
AEK's perfect run was rewarded with another name in the Team of the Round of 16. RaiQuan Gray has been sensational all year long, and leads the +/- stats for The Queen - AEK are an unreal +138 with their power forward on the floor this season!
Gray did a bit of everything in six games of the Round of 16 with 16.2 points, 6.0 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.3 steals, and an efficiency rating of 21.0 per game.
Finally, the middle belongs to the eternal Croatian Sensation. Ante Tomic was the anchor for Asisa Joventut, with 10.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists through his first five games, before picking up an early injury in the final game against Unicaja.
His average efficiency rating through the first five matchups was 14.2, while never playing more than 22 minutes in a single game.
The Most Valuable Player of the Round of 16 will be announced on Thursday.