VALENCIA (Jeff Taylor's Eurovision) - It's not impossible to go through an entire season without losing a game in a European continental club competition. 

Dynamo St. Petersburg had an undefeated 20-win campaign back in the 2004-05 FIBA Europe League when David Blatt was at the helm.

It starting to look as if it could happen in the second edition of the 2017-18 Basketball Champions League. AS Monaco Basket have yet to lose.

Zvezdan Mitrovic, who coached the club all the way to the Final Four last season in Tenerife, where it won the Third-Place Game against Umana Reyer Venezia, brought back just two of the players in that side yet has steered it to 11 wins in as many Basketball Champions League games in 2017-18.

Monaco aren't perfect in France, but their 13-3 record heading into Sunday's game at Nanterre 92 was good enough for a two-game lead over Limoges in the LNB standings.

It all starts with Mitrovic, the coach who also happens to be at the helm of the Montenegro national team and someone that demands everything from his players on the defensive end.

"I really enjoy playing for him," Monaco center Elmedin Kikanovic told me after the team played without injured captain Amara Sy and scoring machine Gerald Robinson and still thumped Dinamo Sassari, 87-55.

"He's a great coach. We have great chemistry. He had a tough job because compared to last season, this team is almost totally changed."

Of course we're very happy because we haven't lost but it doesn't mean a lot for the next stage.  We know the Round of 16 and the Quarter-Finals will be important. When you play those games, it doesn't matter if you finished first or if you finished fourth.

Kikanovic

Monaco waved good-bye to a lot of players yet they reloaded.

They have terrific playmakers in Aaron Craft and DJ Cooper.

The former has been getting a lot of column inches since his days with the Ohio State Buckeyes and deservedly so. But what about Cooper, who joined after the start of the season? To have both effectively gives the floor general position A-star quality all game long.

Cooper was actually a Monaco player in 2016, when he joined midway through the campaign and appeared in 25 games. He has twice handed out 10 assists in a game in the Basketball Champions League this season and is averaging 6.9apg. His most memorable outing came on November 14 at UCAM Murcia when we discovered just how difficult it was going to be to beat this Monaco team.

Down five and approaching the halfway-point of the last quarter, Cooper drilled an NBA-range 3-pointer. A few minutes later, Cooper delivered a perfect alley-oop pass to Chris Evans and he scored to knot the contest. Fouled on the play, Evans made the free-throw to put Monaco on top to stay.

With point guards like these two, Monaco haven't lost any sleep following the departures of Zach Wright and Dee Bost after last season.

When Cooper finished his collegiate career in The Buckeye State (he played for Ohio University), he had 934 assists and 328 steals, numbers at the time that ranked him 12th and 18th all-time, respectively, in Division I history. Last season, he was the French Pro A's Player of the Year after averaging 10.7apg with Elan Bearnais Pau-Orthez.

This team has shooters Sergi Gladyr and Robinson, and it also has the ultimate high-flier in Evans, which rhymes with heavens, which is appropriate because that's where you usually find him during games because he really gets up.

Monaco have a terrific center in Bosnia and Herzegovina's Kikanovic, a player that can score inside and hit the mid-range jumper. Kikanovic is averaging a team-high 15.7ppg in the Basketball Champions League.

There are two others that are vital components in Paul Lacombe and Georgi Joseph. They joined in the summer from Strasbourg and Orleans, respectively, and have injected toughness, amongst other things.

"We have a deep rotation and I think we use it in the right way," Kikanovic said. "We have guys with high I.Q., guys that are athletic. We have a good combination of all these things. I think we're doing a great job. We can be happy but it's January, and the most important months are in front of us."

An unbeaten record would be a magnificent achievement for Monaco. It's not something the players should be consumed by, though.

"Of course we're very happy because we haven't lost but it doesn't mean a lot for the next stage," the 29-year-old Kikanovic said. "We know the Round of 16 and the Quarter-Finals will be important. When you play those games, it doesn't matter if you finished first or if you finished fourth."

If Monaco close the Regular Season with victories at EWE Baskets Oldenburg, at home to UCAM Murcia and at Pinar Karsiyaka, talk of a possible unbeaten run is going to be very loud.

EWE Baskets Oldenburg will be breathing fire on Wednesday after suffering a 20-point loss at Murcia.

Jeff Taylor
FIBA

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