MUNICH (FIBA Europe Cup) – There are three teams who competed in last year's FIBA Europe Cup involved in Group D action this time around and Sopron (HUN) and Port of Antwerp Giants (BEL) find themselves together in the Regular Season group for the second year in a row.

While the journey for Sopron and another returning team FC Porto (POR) ended already after the Regular Season, the Giants became the darling story of the competition and fell just one step short from a spot in the Final Four.

Joining the other teams in the group, Nanterre 92 (FRA) has accumulated top-level international experience and will unquestionably be a force to be reckoned with in the FIBA Europe Cup as well.

Sopron hope to improve on debut

There was valuable lessons to be learned in their last year’s FIBA Europe Cup campaign for Sopron, who only recorded a single win and were hardly in contention for a ticket to the next round.

With extra international experience, the Hungarian side will be a more difficult nut to crack this season, despite being drawn into perhaps one of the tougher groups of in the competition.

A decade or so ago, Sopron was a team that found itself jumping between the first and second divisions domestically, but they brought in some stability and asserted themselves as a topflight club, playing in the top tier since the 2005-06 season with no breaks.

Although success has been modest, the team's results are slowly but surely improving almost on a yearly basis. Over the past three seasons that coach Balazs Sabali has been in charge, Sopron reached the Semi-Finals in the domestic championship twice.

Last season, the team finished sixth in the Regular Season and lost 3-2 to Atomeromu SE in the Quarter-Final series, but didn't finish the season empty-handed, winning a consolatory bronze medal in the Hungarian Cup.

Beware of the resurging Dragons

After disbanding their professional team in 2012, FC Porto worked its way back from lower divisions under the name Dragon Force and returned to the Portuguese Basketball League (LPB) last season with immediate success.

Having defeated the four-time defending champions SL Benfica in the Finals, the team claimed the Portuguese title, the 12th in the club’s history, already in its very first season back with the elite.

The team also competed in the FIBA Europe Cup last season, but did not make it out of the Regular Season after finishing the First Round with a 2-4 record.

The start of the new season brought a mixed bag of feelings for Porto fans. On the one hand, the team failed to get over the hurdle of Juventus Utena (LTU) in the Basketball Champions League (BCL) Qualification Round, losing the tie 160-140 on aggregate.

However, coach Moncho Lopez’s players did celebrate an emphatic victory against rivals Benfica in the Portuguese SuperCup for their first title of the season.  

What this season in FIBA Europe Cup holds for Porto remains to be seen, but the Dragons have demonstrated time and again that being back with the big boys is only the first part of much higher overall ambitions.

Port of Antwerp Giants dream of repeating last year's run

Not many expected Port of Antwerp Giants to be one of the best teams of the inaugural FIBA Europe Cup, but the Belgians turned doubters into believers as they marched all the way to the Quarter-Finals.

Boasting one of the best records in the competition, the Belgian side had lost only two games all season long in Europe until the unfortunate series against Openjobmetis Varese (ITA), which ended 2-1 in favour of the opponents.

However, the Giants struggled to transfer their success to the Belgian Basketball League, where they only finished sixth in the Regular Season and the Quarter-Final stage once again became the barrier that proved too high.

The club is coached by Roel Moors, a four-time Belgian Player of the Year recipient, who was promoted to the head coach position last November, only a month after having his jersey number 4 retired by the Giants.

The summer has brought quite a lot of change in terms of the roster, with most of the key players from last season departing to be replaced by newcomers from other clubs

After the first three rounds of action in the new season in the domestic championship, the Giants stand as the only undefeated team in Belgium with the duo of Jason Clark and Demetrius Conger carrying the team with excellent play.

League newcomers Nanterre 92 in it to win it

Promoted to the French LNB Pro A in 2011, Nanterre 92 has managed to achieve quite a lot during this short time, winning the French title in 2013, claiming the French Cup in 2014 and taking the FIBA EuroChallenge crown in 2015.

It is perhaps slightly premature to single out FIBA Europe Cup favourites for the upcoming season, but the name of Nanterre would, on paper, likely appear on the list of probable winners of the competition.

However, the game of basketball is not played on paper and coach Pascal Donnadieau faces a tough challenge of creating chemistry and constructing a functioning squad from almost entirely new pieces.

The only two returning players are Mykal Riley and Hugo Invernizzi.

Having added the likes og Chris Warren, Heiko Schaffartzik, Spencer Butterfield, Talib Zanna and former Australian NBL MVP Brian Conklin, there is plenty of quality to achieve something special for Nanterre once again.

Two of the country’s top prospects Mathias Lessort and Bathiste Tchouaffe are also featured on the roster.

After the concentrated success of late, last season was a small let down for the club's fans. Nanterre did get into the Play-Offs in France after finishing eighth in the Regular Season, but were eliminated by AS Monaco already in the Quarter-Finals.

FIBA