MIES (Switzerland) - BCL Regular Season Week 5 action gets underway on Tuesday and it's somewhat of an atypical day, as it features four games from four different groups. Here's a closer look at some facts and figures for each of those games.
VEF RIGA (1-1) vs. AEK BETSSON BC (1-1) - Group E, 18:00 CET
VEF Riga and AEK Betsson BC meet in the BCL Regular Season for the first time since the 2021-22 campaign, when each of their two encounters was won by the home team. VEF Riga scored 92 points when they hosted AEK back then, which remains the club's scoring high in a single BCL game at home.
VEF have three victories in their last three BCL home games (this includes the tail end of last season), as many wins as in their previous 11 home games in the competition, and also their longest winning streak at home in the competition. The Latvian champions won the last six BCL games at home in which they allowed fewer than 80 points, and lost all nine games in which they gave up 80 or more points.
AEK have a 1-8 record in their last nine BCL games overall, and 0-5 on the road. The Athens side lost all three of their most recent road games by more than 10 points.
VEF Riga's Issuf Sanon scored 19 points in each of his first two BCL games with the Latvian club, after never scoring more than 14 points in any of his previous 15 BCL appearances. Sanon has made five 3-pointers total overt the first two games of the season, as many as in his first 15 games combined.
Hunter Hale of AEK has averaged 20.8 points per game over his last five BCL appearances, hitting 3.6 triples per contest in that run. Hale scored at least 14 points in each of his last six road games in the BCL.
SAINT-QUENTIN BASKET-BALL (1-1) vs. LA LAGUNA TENERIFE (2-0) - Group C, 20:00 CET
Saint-Quentin will play their third game in the BCL, with the two previous encounters being decided by double-digit margins; the French side won their first game at home in the competition (84-54 v Kolossos H Hotels), despite trailing at the end of the first quarter.
Tenerife are 2-0 in their last two road games in the BCL, with their longest winning run on the road dating back to January-April 2022, when they won four in a row on the road. The Spanish team is undefeated when visiting French teams in the BCL, with five wins and one tie (in a home-and-away qualification game) in their six games in France.
Saint-Quentin and Tenerife have the two best defenses in the BCL so far this year in terms of points per possession, as they allow 0.91 and 0.92 points per possession, respectively. Not coincidentally, they also lead the league in allowed made field goals, as Tenerife's opponents make just 22 shots from the floor per game, and Saint-Quentin's 23.5 per game.
Nolan Traore is the only Saint-Quentin player to have scored more than 10 points in each of their first two BCL games, as well as their only player to have dished 5 or more assists in each of the first two games.
Tenerife's Giorgi Shermadini scored more than 12 points in each of the last nine BCL Regular Season games in which he played at least 20 minutes, averaging 15.9 points and 5.9 rebounds in that run. The Georgian center scored 10 or more points in each of his previous five games against French teams.
WKS SLASK WROCLAW (0-2) vs. PALLACANESTRO REGGIANA (1-1) - Group F, 20:00 CET
Wroclaw are yet to win a game in the BCL, after allowing an average of 91 points over their first two games in the competition. Wroclaw haven’t yet enjoyed a lead higher than 2 points in a BCL game.
Reggiana have lost their most recent three road games in the BCL, albeit all by single-digit margins. The team that was leading at half-time won seven of the eight BCL games which Reggiana has played so far in the competition.
Reggiana have the best perimeter defense in the BCL so far this year, as the Italians allow opponents to hit only 4.5 3-pointers on average. It follows that the Italian team's opponents score only 18.6 percent of their points from behind the arc, which is also the best (lowest) in the league. By contrast, Reggiana were allowing almost twice as many 3-pointers, 8.8 per game, when they played in the BCL in 2022-23.
Wroclaw's Jeremy Senglin scored 10 or more points in 14 of his 15 starts in the BCL, including his most recent five games as a starter. He's averaged 17.3 points and 5.3 rebounds in his last three games against Italian teams in the BCL.
Jamar Smith of Reggiana has scored 10 or more points in each of his last six BCL games and has made at least one 3-pointer in all his 15 games in the competition. He is an impressive 20-of-21 from the free-throw line in his BCL career so far.
SL BENFICA (0-2) vs. BERTRAM DERTHONA BASKET (2-0) - Group G, 21:30 CET
Benfica are 1-10 in their last 11 games in the BCL, after winning four of their first five in the competition. All of their seven home games in the BCL were decided by margins of more than 12 points.
Derthona are 7-3 in their 10 games in the BCL so far, but two of their three losses came on the road. If they win on Wednesday, it will be the second time in a row that they start the BCL season on a 3-0 record.
Derthona are joint leaders of the BCL so far this season in blocks, with 6.5 per game (Slask Wroclaw also average 6.5) while Benfica are the only team in the competition to average fewer than one block (0.5 per game). The Portuguese side had at least 3 blocks in each of their six BCL games last season.
Tyler Stone of Benfica has averaged 20 points and 7.6 rebounds over his last 11 BCL appearances. He scored at least 13 points in each of his seven home games in the competition, while grabbing at least rebounds in five of those encounters.
Arturs Strautins of Derthona scored more than 15 points in each of his two BCL games this season, after never scoring as many in any of his first 17 appearances in the competition. He is 5-of-6 from 3-point range this season, after going 5-of-18 previously.