BCL Fantasy tips: Riding the national team momentum

MIES (Switzerland) - Season 8 of the Basketball Champions League returns this week. That also means the official BCL Fantasy game is back, giving you a chance to take advantage of your BCL knowledge and fight for the prizes  in your public or private leagues.

The most recent BCL games were played a month ago, but a lot of players had virtually no time off, fighting for their domestic Cup trophies, and then moving straight to national team duty to start the Qualifiers for the FIBA continental championships, coming up next year.

There were some hints for your Fantasy teams there, too. Because this sounds like the perfect timing to go big on Klemen Prepelic, arguably the MVP of the February window in the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers.

 
Slovenia's legendary guard always picks it up a notch in his national team jersey and the first two games of this qualifying campaign - including a 30-point, 9-assist performance against Ukraine - were not different,.

If you can't afford to pick up Klemen for your lineup you don't need to dig a lot deeper to find another gem, because his Slovenia teammate Gregor Hrovat was also impressive, with 16 points in the Greens' other group game.

Both of them have since returned to club duty and continued scoring in double digits. Prepelic had 23 points and 8 assists in a Galatasaray EKMAS win over Turk Telekom in the Turkish League, while Hrovat had 10 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds for JDA Bourgogne Dijon in a narrow defeat to LDLC ASVEL.

The two Slovenians were not the only BCL players rising to the occasion in February. Kendrick Perry was all over the court for Montenegro, collecting 18 points, 5 assists and 5 steals against Sweden, so expect him to continue his bid in the BCL MVP Race too, just riding that momentum all the way to March - and April and May, if Unicaja go that far.

Even if you can't go after Perry or Prepelic here, a wise move would be to find a Fantasy pack with UCAM Murcia players. That's because Howard Sant-Roos had a memorable win with Cuba over the United States, and then returned to Murcia with a 14-point, 7-assist outing against BAXI Manresa in the Liga Endesa.

With guys like Dylan Ennis, Troy Caupain, Jonah Radebaugh or Rodions Kurucs also on that team, Sant-Roos is hardly considered a superstar, yet he delivers a crazy statline every single time for coach Sito Alonso. Since this Fantasy game is all about efficiency, having Sant-Roos on your team sounds like perfection in March.

Another player with a similar Spain - Americas - Spain path last week was Bruno Fitipaldo. The  Lenovo Tenerife guard had his best game of the season, with 22 points, 8 assists, 6 rebounds and 4 steals for Uruguay before coming back to the Canary Islands to pick up another Liga Endesa win.

Looking for tips? Just follow the national teams' trail. Prepelic, Hrovat, Perry, Sant-Roos, Fitipaldo - all of them could change your Fantasy season, especially coming off a hot finish to the month in February.