The 2009–10 Euroleague was the 10th season of the professional basketball competition for elite clubs throughout Europe, organised by Euroleague Basketball Company, and it was the 53rd season of the premier competition for European men's clubs overall. The regular season featured 24 teams from 13 countries.
This season marked the first time since 2001–02 season that a qualifying round was used to determine the last two teams for the regular season. The qualifying round started on September 29, 2009, while the regular season of the Euroleague started on October 15, 2010. The season ended with the Euroleague Final Four, which was hosted at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in Paris, France,[1] with the final on May 9, 2010.
For the first time in the modern Euroleague era, a preliminary stage was used to determine the last two teams in the regular season. 8 teams competed in qualification rounds, of which the 2 winners advanced to the regular season stage. Those teams joined 22 teams that had qualified directly to the regular season stage.[2][3]
A maximum of three teams could qualify from any one country through their league position. However, 14 clubs held Euroleague Basketball A-linceces, which gave them automatic spots in the Euroleague Regular Season until 2011–12, regardless of their domestic league finish. These licenses were granted via a formula that considers each team's performance in its domestic league and the Euroleague, the television revenues Euroleague Basketball collects from its home country and the team's home attendance.
The rest of the field was filled with teams that qualified through their performance in their respective national leagues and wild card invitations.
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round (TH: Euroleague title holders):
Games were played on September 29 and October 2. Winners advanced to the second preliminary round, while losers parachuted into the Eurocup.
Game 1 of each match was played on October 6. Game 2 of the Benetton Treviso-Entente Orléanaise match was played on October 9, and Game 2 of Maroussi-Alba Berlin was played on October 11. The winners of each match advanced to the Regular Season, with the losers parachuting into the Eurocup.
The Regular Season began on October 15, 2009 and concluded on January 14, 2010.
If teams were level on record at the end of the Regular Season, tiebreakers were applied in the following order:[4]
The survivors from the Regular Season advanced to the Top 16, where they were drawn into four groups of four teams each, playing home-and-home from January 27 through March 11. The draw was held at Euroleague headquarters in Barcelona, starting at 13:00 CET on January 18, and was streamed live on the official Euroleague site.[4]
Team 1 hosted Games 1 and 2, plus Game 5 if necessary. Team 2 hosted Game 3, and Game 4 if necessary.
[5]
Przemyslaw Seczkowski ( Asseco Prokom Gdynia)
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