The top women’s basketball competition in Europe has reached its apex.
The EuroLeague Women playoffs, also known as the “Final Six,” tip-off this Wednesday, April 15, and as one would expect, only the very best teams will be playing for the championship.
The format of the Final Six is quick and ruthless: It’s three rounds of single-elimination basketball played over the course of five days. The winners of Wednesday’s quarterfinals will advance to the semifinals on Friday, where the top-two seeded teams,
Fenerbahçe Opet and Galatasaray Çağdaş Faktoring, await. Finally, the championship and third-place games will be played on Sunday, April 19, when we’ll find out who the best team in Europe truly is.
Who will come out on top? There’s only one way to find out, and it’s on FIBA’s EuroLeague Women YouTube channel. The games will be streamed live and for free, just as they have all season, so there’s no excuse not to miss them. Now, let’s meet the teams who will be competing in this highly-anticipated international basketball event!
Basket Landes
Landes has been one of this season’s most pleasant surprises. The French club may not have as many instantly-recognizable names on its roster as others do, but a strong performance in group play has put both the players and the club itself on the map.
On the surface, Landes doesn’t match up well statistically with most of the other clubs competing in the Final Six, but the results speak for themselves. Landes finished first in Group D during the first phase of group play, most notably defeating a talented ÇBK Mersin team twice and ousting them from the competition earlier than anyone predicted. They kept rolling in the second phase, finishing in second place in Group F and having the unique honor of being the only team this season to knock off the mighty Fenerbahçe Opet, and gave Galatasaray Çağdaş Faktoring all they could handle in the play-ins.
To put it simply, Landes has won enough games against supposedly superior teams to tell us that we’re the ones who have been sleeping on them, and they’re just that good. Landes goes 10 to 11 players deep in most games, which allows them to keep up their defensive pressure for a full 40 minutes. It goes without saying that a team featuring Leïla Lacan is going to be a pain to score against, but she’s just one of six Landes players who are averaging over a steal per game. We’ll see if that defense is enough to keep things even against EuroLeague Women’s very best.
Casademont Zaragoza
It’s fitting that Zaragoza is having the most successful EuroLeague Women season in club history, because they’ll have one key advantage in the Final Six: They’ll be hosting the entire event.
To be clear, Zaragoza has a bit more going for them than just their home crowd. In Mariona Ortiz and Helena Pueyo, they have arguably the most disruptive defensive backcourt in the competition, and as a team they average 10.8 steals per game. They also have one of the league’s most aggressive downhill attackers in Carla Leite, who is shooting 44-for-48 (91.7 percent) on free throws and can single-handedly buoy her team’s offensive efficiency from the free throw line.
Like Landes, Zaragoza has also shown a flair for the dramatic. Who could forget their 20-point second-half comeback against Valencia Basket Club, or their two-game play-in sweep of reigning EuroLeague champs ZVVZ USK Praha that resulted in one of the most wholesome crowd celebrations you’ll ever see? On paper, there’s not much of a statistical case for Zaragoza to win it all, but they do seem to have an air of destiny about them.
Fenerbahçe Opet
Fenerbahçe are once again the hands-down favorites to win it all, with a stacked roster and remarkable chemistry that has produced some incredible results. The Turkish giants cruised through group play at 11-1 and are at or near the top of the leaderboards in most statistical categories: Fenerbahçe leads EuroLeague Women in points per game (83.1), field goal percentage (51.4 percent), assists per game (25.5), steals per game (11) and free throw percentage (83.9 percent), and they had by far the largest cumulative point differential at +258.
All one has to do is glance at Fenerbahçe’s roster to understand how this is possible. It’s a who’s-who of some of the world’s best players, with three-time EuroLeague Women MVP Emma Meesseman and Iliana Rupert bringing unmatched levels of shooting in the frontcourt, Gabby Williams wreaking havoc on the wing and Julie Allemand orchestrating everything at point guard. And although the club will not benefit from Kayla McBride providing her usual 3-point marksmanship, as a damaged eardrum has prevented her from re-joining the team, Breanna Stewart is set to join Fenerbahçe for the Final Six. They’ll be widely expected to win their third championship in the past four seasons.
Galatasaray Çağdaş Faktoring
Galatasaray has gone through a rebirth of sorts, returning to the EuroLeague Women playoffs for the first time since 2021. Perhaps best-known among casual fans for being Fenerbahçe’s biggest rivals, Galatasaray women’s basketball has a storied history, enjoying a dominant run in the Turkish Basketball Super League during the 1990s and winning a EuroLeague Women championship in 2014. This season is the best shape Galatasaray has been in since then, and while a lot would have to go right for them to completely reclaim their former glory, it’s not totally out of the question, either.
With a frontcourt trio of Dorka Juhász, Awak Kuier and Elizabeth Williams, Galtasaray’s biggest strength lies in their ability to control the paint. Of the remaining teams in the competition, Galatasaray ranks first in rebounds per game (40.9) and blocks per game (4.3), and they’ve recorded a league-best 11 double-doubles over the course of the season. If they’re going to win it all, it will be on the shoulders of their bigs.
That doesn’t mean Galatasaray is a one-dimensional team, though. With the wizardry of Marine Johannès and the efficiency of Kamiah Smalls, they also have guards who are more than capable of taking over a basketball game. The question will be if Galatasaray can get all of their big names clicking at the same time; if they do, they can beat anyone in the league.
Spar Girona
Girona started the season red-hot, finishing ahead of well-known clubs like Tango Bourges Basket and reigning champions ZVVZ USK Praha in the first round of group play, and for a while it looked like they might challenge Galatasaray for the top seed in Group E in the second round. An untimely injury to the league’s leading scorer, Mariam Coulibaly, dashed those hopes, but Girona nonetheless finished 8-4 and earned a direct trip to the Final Six.
Coulibaly is back now, and that’s great news for Girona. Everything they do depends on her rebound the ball and score efficiently in the paint; Girona does lead the remaining teams in 3-point attempts per game (24.7), but those aren’t going to be quality looks without a strong frontcourt presence to set them up. They also have one of the more talented young playmakers in the competition in Justė Jocytė, though her own scoring has been inconsistent over the course of the season. We’ll see if Girona can find its early-season form and surprise some people.
Umana Reyer Venezia
Venezia made their way to the Final Six with a thrilling play-in series win over fellow Italian club Beretta Famila Schio, and though there isn’t as much buzz surrounding them as their peers, they have the weapons to make things interesting no matter who they play. With Kaila Charles, Joyner Holmes, Stephanie Mavunga and Lorela Cubaj, Venezia is long and athletic, and they have several players who can hit tough shots against set defenses.
The main issue for Venezia is that they don’t truly excel in any one area. They’re the second-worst scoring team in the Final Six (68.7 points per game) and while they shoot a lot of 3-pointers, they don’t often hit them (28.6 percent). Defensively, Venezia is able to make a good amount of plays, averaging 2.8 blocks and 9.0 steals per game, but those still aren’t areas that Venezia can lean on to win against the competition’s top teams. As basic as it sounds, the clearest way for them to advance is for them to simply hit their outside jumpshots at an acceptable clip.
