The Turkish Airlines Euroleague 2013–14 was the 14th season of the modern era of Euroleague Basketball and the fourth under the title sponsorship of the Turkish Airlines. Including the competition's previous incarnation as the FIBA Europe Champions Cup, this was the 57th season of the premier competition for European men's clubs.
Euroleague Basketball Company, in its annual meeting in Barcelona, determined the site of the season's Euroleague Final Four venue. London was originally supposed to host the Final Four, but it was decided that the 2014 Euroleague Final Four be hold at the Mediolanum Forum, in Milan. In the championship final game, Maccabi Electra defeated previous season runners-up Real Madrid with 98-86 after overtime, and won its sixth Euroleague title in the club history.
Allocation
There are three routes to participation in the Euroleague:
14 places were allocated from a list of 30 teams given a B-Licence ranked according to their European national basketball league rankings over the last year. 14 teams were given both an A-Licence or C-Licence and a B-Licence. When a country ranking spot has already been assigned to an A-Licence team, the assignation will jump to the next country appearing in the ranking, and their league is not granted an additional place in the competition. The first 8 of the remaining 16 teams were given places in the regular-season, and the next 6 were given places in the qualifying competition.
If the Eurocup champion is qualified by receiving a B license or some team with it resigns to the competition, a wild card must be given by the Euroleague.
The Euroleague has the right to cancel an A license for one of the following reasons:[2]
The club has the lowest ranking of all clubs with an A Licence according to the Club Ranking.
The club has ranked among the clubs placed in the bottom half of the national championship final standings.
The club has financial problems.
In the ACB (Spain), when the champion and/or the runner-up of the league are teams without an A license. In this case, the A license club with the lowest position will play Eurocup in the next season. If this happens three times in five years, the A license of the club would be cancelled.
EA7 Milano has a two-year A license, awarded in June 2012.[4]
Asseco Prokom lost its A license, as last qualified in the A licensed team tanking. The license was converted in a wildcard.
B licenses
B licenses can be given to every team without an A license. If in the allocation appears a team with A license, the next team in the criteria will receive the B license, which qualifies directly to the Regular Season.[5]
Adriatic: the places are awarded to the top teams in the Regular Season. If the third or fourth qualified wins the Final Four, it will be granted with the first spot, moving the champion and the runner-up of the Regular Season to the second and third spots. In February 2012, Euroleague Basketball clarified the situation of the Adriatic League spots saying the three first teams in the Final Four will qualify.[7] Due to the different interpretation of both associations, Euroleague and Liga ABA negotiated a solution to be applied only for the 2012–13 season.
Finally, both organizations agreed that if the team is in the first positions after the Regular Season meets all of the B-licence minimum requirements, will qualify to Euroleague. In this case Igokea doesn't meet required criteria, so Euroleague Basketball applied the 2012–13 Euroleague Bylaws by which the 2013 ABA Final Four champion and the runner-up will take the first two Adriatic positions in this order, whilst the next highest regular season team will take the final Adriatic position.[8][9][10]
The draws for the 2013–14 Turkish Airlines Euroleague qualifying rounds was held on Thursday, 4 July.
Teams were seeded into four pots of two teams in accordance with the Club Ranking, based on their performance in European competitions during a three-year period and the teams granted a Wild Card by ECA were seeded above the rest of the teams.
The draws for the 2013–14 Turkish Airlines Euroleague were held on Thursday, 4 July.
Teams were seeded into six pots of four teams in accordance with the Club Ranking, based on their performance in European competitions during a three-year period.
Two teams from the same country could not be drawn together in the same Regular Season group.
The Final Four is the last phase of each Euroleague season, and is held over a weekend. The semifinal games are played on Friday evening. Sunday starts with the third-place game, followed by the championship final.