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The 2013–14 Turkish Airlines Euroleague 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 held at the Mediolanum Forum, in Milan. In the championship final game, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv defeated the previous season's runners-up, Real Madrid, by a score of 98-86 after overtime, and won its sixth Euroleague title in the club's history.
Allocation
There were three routes to participation in the Euroleague:
The 14 teams with an A-Licence from the 2012–13 Euroleague, based on their Euroleague Club Ranking.[1]
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 had already been assigned to an A-Licence team, the assignation jumped to the next country appearing in the ranking, and their league was 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 was qualified by receiving a B license, or some team with it resigned from the competition, a wild card had to be given by the Euroleague.
The Euroleague had the right to cancel an A license for one of the following reasons:[2]
The club had the lowest ranking of all clubs with an A Licence according to the Club Ranking.
The club had ranked among the clubs placed in the bottom half of the national championship final standings.
The club had financial problems.
In the ACB (Spain), when the champion and/or the runner-up of the league were teams without an A license. In that case, the A license club with the lowest position would play Eurocup in the next season. If that happened three times in five years, the A license of the club would be cancelled.
EA7 Milano had a two-year A license, awarded in June 2012.[4]
Asseco Prokom lost its A license, as it was the last qualified in the A licensed team tanking. The license was converted into a wildcard.
B licenses
B licenses could be given to every team without an A license. If in the allocation appeared a team with an A license, the next team in the criteria would receive the B license, which qualified directly to the Regular Season.[5]
Adriatic: the places were awarded to the top teams in the Regular Season. If the third or fourth qualified won the Final Four, it would 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 Adriatic League Final Four would 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 that was in the first position after the Regular Season met all of the B-licence minimum requirements, it would qualify to Euroleague. In that case, Igokea did not meet the required criteria, so Euroleague Basketball applied the 2012–13 Euroleague Bylaws, by which the 2013 ABA Final Four champion and the runner-up, would take the first two Adriatic positions in that order, whilst the next highest regular season team would take the final Adriatic position.[8][9][10]
The eight teams participated in a single-venue tournament format, from October 1 until October 4, 2013. All games were played in the Siemens Arena in Vilnius, Lithuania.
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 was the last phase of the season and was held over a weekend. The semifinal games were played on 16 May, while the third place game and championship game were played on 18 May. The Final Four was held at the Mediolanum Forum in Milan, Italy.