Casademont Zaragoza

Zaragoza enters a fascinating season because almost everything around the club points toward ambition.

They reached the Final Six last year for the first time, and the deciding event returns to Zaragoza again in April. Getting there twice in a row would turn last season from a historic breakthrough into the beginning of something more sustainable.

The roster responsible for that run, however, did not remain intact. Carla Leite, Helena Pueyo and Aminata Gueye are among the important pieces no longer there, leaving Carlos Cantero to preserve the identity while redistributing responsibility.

The offense should still look familiar. Zaragoza wants the ball moving, good spacing around multiple decision-makers and enough skill at the frontcourt positions to avoid becoming guard-dependent. Merritt Hempe remains central to that. She can punish smaller players around the basket, while her ability to step outside prevents opposing centers from simply living near the rim.

Aisha Sheppard and Yarden Garzon add badly needed perimeter scoring. Garzon, at 1.91 meters, also gives Zaragoza another big wing capable of attacking mismatches rather than only finishing possessions. Both are new to this level of European competition, so how quickly their scoring translates against EuroLeague defenses matters.

Astou Ndour will eventually change the frontcourt significantly, but she is expected to join Zaragoza in January, meaning the team has to navigate the entire First Round and at least part of the Second Round before receiving one of its biggest additions.

There is another transition coming at point guard. Mariona Ortiz is expected to leave around the turn of the year, so Zaragoza knows this is not simply a hypothetical future issue. The offense has to begin developing its post-Ortiz hierarchy before she actually goes.

That makes these opening months unusually important. Zaragoza has enough talent to win Group A, but it is effectively building one version of itself now while preparing for another one later.

Kibirkstis-TOKS

Kibirkstis had to earn its place here, and the way it did so should make the rest of Group A pay attention.

The Lithuanian champions beat Poznan 91-69 before going to Sopron and winning 81-62, ending a 12-year absence from the EuroLeague Women Regular Season.

More important than the results was how quickly the new pieces appeared to understand one another.

Nausia Woolfolk showed two versions of herself during the qualifiers. Against Poznan, her playmaking was the story as she finished with 11 assists and consistently manipulated the first line of defense. Against Sopron, the game asked for more scoring and she responded with 18 points. That ability to read what the possession needs rather than arriving with one predetermined role may be the most important quality in Kibirkstis’ backcourt.

Niyah Becker gives them similar versatility in a different body. Her 18-point, nine-rebound, five-assist performance against Poznan showed how much she can influence without needing to dominate the ball.

Then there is Zoe Wadoux.

Her shooting was one of the defining features of the qualifiers, but Vilius Stanišauskas has found ways to turn her gravity into much more than three-point attempts. Kibirkstis can use Wadoux as a screener, forcing defenders into an uncomfortable choice. Switch and a mismatch may appear elsewhere. Lock and trail her too aggressively and the screener defender can be manipulated into giving up a paint touch. Lose contact for a moment and Wadoux needs very little space to shoot.

That is a sophisticated way to use an elite shooter because the value is not limited to whether she actually takes the shot.

Kibirkstis will run whenever possible, but the qualifiers also showed that it can execute in the half court through ball screens, off-ball actions and good spacing. Woolfolk, Becker and Wadoux joined a returning Lithuanian core that gives the roster more continuity than the number of EuroLeague newcomers might suggest.

Experience is the obvious question. Most of this group has not played meaningful EuroLeague minutes, but the basketball itself does not look inexperienced.

Athinaikos Qualco

Athinaikos is making its EuroLeague Women debut, but very little about the roster feels like that of a traditional newcomer.

This is an experienced group built to compete immediately.

Julie Vanloo gives Athinaikos a genuine lead guard capable of organizing pick-and-roll, creating her own shot and forcing defenses to extend much farther from the basket than they would like. Her shooting range changes where a ball-screen defense has to begin working, and once the big steps higher, the space behind the coverage becomes available.

The frontcourt gives Athinaikos several ways to use that pressure. Mariella Fasoula offers size and touch around the basket, Victoria Macaulay provides another experienced interior option, while Alexis Prince and Robyn Parks add scoring and positional versatility around them.

The double-big possibilities are particularly interesting. Fasoula and Macaulay can share the floor when the matchup calls for size, but neither has to be permanently attached to the other. Athinaikos can play one center and open more space around Vanloo, or use both to punish smaller lineups inside and on the glass.

That adaptability should extend to defense. We expect Athinaikos to be heavily opponent-specific rather than married to one coverage, with preparation playing a major role in how they try to remove an opponent’s best actions.

For a debutant, the ambition is obvious. This team was not assembled simply to participate.

Basket Landes

Basket Landes was one of the best stories in Europe last season, reaching the Final Six for the first time.

Repeating that run will require doing it with a very different backcourt.

Leila Lacan’s departure is particularly significant. She gave Landes downhill pressure, defensive disruption and a creator capable of changing the game without needing the offense to stop around her.

Trinity San Antonio is not the same player, but she replaces some of the same functions. We saw at the World Cup how destructive her hands can be defensively and how quickly she can turn a disrupted possession into pressure at the other end. She also gives Landes another guard willing to get into the paint rather than allowing the offense to become purely perimeter-based.

The wing rotation has been rebuilt around players such as Mariama Daramy, Sophie Elenga and Emma Peytour, with Becky Massey returning to provide continuity.

The most important piece never left.

Murjanatu Musa averaged 13.4 points and 8.3 rebounds in EuroLeague Women last season and was the interior foundation of Landes’ historic run. Her mobility makes her more than a traditional post target. She can run, screen, attack the offensive glass and punish defenses that lose her while dealing with movement elsewhere.

We expect Julie Barennes to preserve the principles that made Landes successful: ball and player movement, several decision-makers sharing responsibility, aggressive ball pressure and collective help defensively.

Rebounding remains central to everything. Landes does not possess overwhelming size at every position, so the five players on the floor have to finish possessions together. If they do, this is absolutely a team capable of returning to the Final Six.

Gameday One:

Kibirkstis-TOKS vs. Athinaikos Qualco

Gameday One:

Casademont Zaragoza vs. Basket Landes

Galatasaray Çağdaş Faktoring

Galatasaray came within one game of becoming European champion last season.

Fenerbahçe stopped them in the Final, and Galatasaray responded by building another roster capable of getting back there.

Marine Johannès is a major loss because very few players can create something from a possession that appears to have nothing. The most important individual piece, however, remained in Istanbul.

Dorka Juhász was named EuroLeague Women MVP after averaging 13.4 points and 8.1 rebounds last season. Her value extends far beyond the numbers. She can score inside, step away from the basket, facilitate and defend multiple frontcourt actions without forcing Galatasaray into one specific coverage.

Awak Kuier also returns, preserving one of the team’s most useful defensive pieces.

Janelle Salaün adds another enormous two-way weapon. She can play as a big wing or slide to the four, defend across positions and create value without the ball through cutting, transition running and spacing. Sevgi Uzun, Sydney Taylor and Marine Fauthoux provide different perimeter creation profiles around that frontcourt.

Under Frédéric Dusart, we expect a collective offense capable of attacking from inside or outside depending on the matchup, with Juhász frequently functioning as the player connecting those two worlds.

The defensive ceiling may be even more interesting. Galatasaray has enough length and mobility to change pick-and-roll coverages without having to substitute into specialist lineups, something that should become increasingly valuable later in the competition.

The immediate challenge is availability. Salaün is still with the Golden State Valkyries in the WNBA Finals, while Fauthoux’s WNBA season with New York ended only recently, leaving a short turnaround before the European campaign.

The finished version of Galatasaray may be better than the one we see in Week 1. That finished version is good enough to win the competition.

KKZ Crvena Zvezda

Crvena Zvezda arrives with perhaps the clearest identity of any team that came through qualifying.

Defense first.

Marina Maljković has built a long, athletic roster designed to make simple passes difficult. Zvezda pressures the ball, closes passing lanes and gets hands into possessions even when the play does not end with a steal.

A deflection that sends the offense eight meters away from the basket or forces a team to restart with 10 seconds left does not appear as a turnover, but it still destroys offensive rhythm. That pressure carried Zvezda through two road qualifier wins against Žabiny Brno and DVTK.

The best offensive version usually begins from that defense.

Destanni Henderson is at her most dangerous attacking before the opposition can establish its coverages, and she carries the largest burden as the primary advantage creator.

When the game slows, Artemis Spanou becomes crucial. She can score, rebound and facilitate from the frontcourt, giving Zvezda a player who can stabilize possessions rather than requiring a guard to manufacture everything. Aliyah Collier, Savannah Wilkinson, Lauren Scherf and Sofia da Silva add further size around her, while Romi Levy gives Maljković the possibility of playing extremely large perimeter lineups.

The tradeoff is spacing. Some of Zvezda’s biggest groups can make life difficult defensively but may also allow an opponent to shrink the floor. Against Galatasaray and Schio, that becomes much harder to survive.

For Zvezda, qualification to the Second Round probably comes down to whether the defense can consistently create enough offense to avoid having every close game decided by half-court shot-making.

Kangoeroes Basket Mechelen

Mechelen returns to EuroLeague Women with a very different roster from its last appearance.

Only Laure Resimont and Heleen Nauwelaers remain from last season’s core, while Hind Ben Abdelkader brings the most meaningful top-level European experience among the additions.

This is a development-oriented club, and that should remain visible in how it plays.

Mechelen wants speed. Early ball screens and dribble handoffs are designed to create the first small defensive mistake, after which the offense has to keep playing rather than allowing the advantage to disappear.

Nauwelaers is particularly valuable because she can fill several jobs. Resimont provides a large scoring wing capable of punishing smaller defenders, while Ben Abdelkader gives the team something a young roster badly needs: a veteran who can still create her own shot when the structure fails.

Grace Sullivan brings genuine size inside, but this is also her first professional season. That transition matters at EuroLeague level, where every mistake in positioning can immediately become a layup, an offensive rebound or a foul.

Defensively, expect Mechelen to be aggressive. Similar-sized players can switch actions, and everyone has to participate on the defensive glass because the roster does not have enough size to survive poor rebounding habits.

The ceiling comes from pace and unpredictability. The floor comes from inexperience.

Beretta Famila Schio

Schio’s 2025-26 season never quite became what the roster suggested it could be.

The coaching change came during the campaign, Georgios Dikaioulakos returned to the club and Schio ultimately missed the Final Six. This time he gets the preseason, and the roster may be even better.

There is a reasonable argument that Cecilia Zandalasini and María Conde form the best wing pairing in EuroLeague Women. Both can score, pass and punish mismatches inside or outside. Conde led Schio in assists last season at 5.9 per game, while Zandalasini remains one of the best late-game shot-makers in Europe.

Mariam Coulibaly gives them a completely different source of pressure. She averaged 17.2 points and 7.4 rebounds for Girona last season and was one of the most physically dominant interior scorers in the competition. Her ability to establish position and finish gives Schio the kind of paint reference that can force defenses to collapse before the wing creation even begins.

The supporting cast has continuity too. Kitija Laksa, Jasmine Keys, Kim Mestdagh, Costanza Verona and Olbis André all return, with Morgan Bertsch another major addition.

We expect Dikaioulakos to increase the tempo, move the ball from side to side and mix on-ball screening with off-ball actions rather than allowing every possession to become static wing isolation. Defensively, Schio has enough size and intelligence to change pick-and-roll coverages according to the matchup.

The early complication is Zandalasini. Like Salaün, she is still playing for Golden State and will be in the WNBA Finals, so Schio opens its EuroLeague season without one of its most important players.

That weakens Schio in October without changing what this team can become later.

Gameday One:

KKZ Crvena Zvezda vs. Kangoeroes Basket Mechelen

Gameday One:

Galatasaray Çağdaş Faktoring vs. Beretta Famila Schio

Fenerbahçe Tarfin

Fenerbahçe won Europe last season and then changed a huge part of the team anyway.

That sounds risky until we look at what remained.

Emma Meesseman is back for a fifth season with the club after winning a modern-era record seventh EuroLeague Women title. Julie Allemand is also back, preserving one of the smartest two-player connections in the competition.

That matters because so much around them is new.

Leila Lacan brings another elite two-way guard who can play next to Allemand or organize possessions while she rests. Lauren Betts gives Fenerbahçe a 2.01-meter interior target with elite rim protection and offensive rebounding potential. Luisa Geiselsöder provides another frontcourt profile entirely, with the skill and basketball IQ to score both inside and outside.

The offense should be difficult to categorize. Pick-and-roll will be there, but so will post touches, elbow creation, split actions and off-ball screening. Meesseman can function as a scorer or as the player who simply makes the next decision, while Allemand can manipulate the defense without needing to dominate the ball.

Fenerbahçe already won the SuperCup Women despite the roster still coming together. Meesseman finished that game with 14 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, a useful reminder that the returning core gives Ahmet Çakı something stable while the new pieces are integrated.

The defensive possibilities may be even more impressive once everyone is available. Lacan can pressure the point of attack, Betts gives them an enormous drop-coverage and rim-protection option, while Meesseman and Geiselsöder can defend more fluid schemes.

The champion has changed. The standard has not.

Fenerbahçe enters the season as our favorite to be holding the trophy again in Zaragoza.

Flammes Carolo Basket

Flammes did not sneak through qualifying.

It kicked the door open.

After scoring 101 points against KP Brno in the semifinal, the French side went to Venice and beat Reyer 81-55, eliminating a team that had reached the previous season’s Final Six.

Those two games showed why Flammes can become more than a team happy to have reached the Regular Season.

The offense is genuinely varied. Ball screens matter, but Flammes does not need to run the same pick-and-roll repeatedly to create offense. It can enter through post touches, off-ball screening or movement before eventually flowing into the action it wants.

The first advantage is only the beginning.

Koi Love and Julie Pospíšilová give the wing rotation more size and secondary creation, while Tiffany Clarke remains the reliable interior reference. Against KP Brno, Pospíšilová and Coline Franchelin each had eight assists, reflecting how willingly the ball moves once the defense has been shifted.

The defense follows a similarly aggressive idea. Flammes pressures the ball, tries to push handlers away from preferred spots and wants mistakes to become transition opportunities.

The swing skill is rebounding.

That was a concern last season and appeared again at times against KP Brno. Against Venezia, Flammes did a much better job finishing possessions and the entire defense became more effective because of it.

That has to become the norm. Fenerbahçe, Valencia and Rapid all have physical frontcourts capable of punishing second chances.

Flammes has already shown it can beat a Final Six-level opponent. Whether it can rebound well enough to reproduce that quality over six games may decide how far this run goes.

CS Rapid Bucuresti

Rapid enters EuroLeague Women as Romanian champion and with the most difficult projection in this group.

Fenerbahçe is the defending European champion. Valencia has Final Six ambitions. Flammes has already eliminated Reyer Venezia.

Rapid cannot afford many empty possessions.

The offense should lean heavily on pick-and-roll, with the bigs primarily creating value as screeners and roll threats. Claudia Cuic becomes important because she gives the offense something different. She can punish mismatches, connect possessions and prevent every action from becoming guard-and-center basketball.

Ziomara Morrison provides veteran size at center, while Maxuella Lisowa-Mbaka adds athleticism and defensive activity across the forward positions.

Defensively, physicality has to become Rapid’s equalizer. Expect ball pressure, early help and a major collective emphasis on the defensive glass. They cannot allow EuroLeague offenses to create the first advantage easily and then spend the rest of the possession scrambling.

The concern is what happens when opponents remove the first pick-and-roll action.

The best teams in this group have multiple ways to continue a possession. Rapid needs Cuic and its secondary handlers to make quick enough decisions that the offense does not become predictable.

The path to the Second Round is narrow, but in a six-game group one upset can change the table very quickly.

Valencia Basket Club

Valencia enters a new coaching era without changing its ambition.

Javier Torralba takes over a roster that still expects to be playing meaningful basketball in Zaragoza in April.

The offensive identity should suit the personnel. Torralba wants pace, quick decisions and possessions where the ball does not become attached to one player. Alexis Peterson-Smalls gives Valencia a guard capable of getting downhill and operating out of pick-and-roll, while Helena Pueyo adds length, defensive intelligence and secondary decision-making on the wing.

The frontcourt is particularly interesting.

Raquel Carrera remains the centerpiece, but Virág Takács-Kiss gives Valencia another skilled interior option who can play alongside her. That creates the possibility of double-big combinations without necessarily destroying the offense because both understand spacing, screening angles and quick passing.

The major loss defensively is Awa Fam. Valencia still has plenty of versatile defenders, but Fam’s combination of size, movement and ability to affect possessions without needing help was difficult to replace directly.

The early-season version may also look different from the one we see later. Carrera’s WNBA season with New York ended only recently, leaving very little turnaround before the EuroLeague opener. How quickly she is reintroduced into Valencia’s rotation is worth monitoring rather than assuming she will immediately carry her normal workload.

Even without perfect continuity to begin the year, Valencia has one of the deeper rosters in the competition.

Fenerbahçe may be the favorite, but Valencia belongs in the group of teams with a legitimate path to Zaragoza.

Gameday One:

Flammes Carolo Basket vs. CS Rapid Bucuresti

Gameday One:

Valencia Basket vs. Fenerbahçe Tarfin

ZVVZ USK Praha

USK Praha looks different, but that does not make it less interesting.

The roster has lost some of the elite experience that defined previous versions, but Martin Bašta still has size, athleticism and high-level decision-makers across almost every position.

Pauline Astier and Maite Cazorla should handle much of the initial organization, particularly through pick-and-roll. Both can create without needing to monopolize possessions, which fits the read-and-react style this roster seems built to play.

The frontcourt is unusually mobile.

Frieda Bühner and Brianna Fraser both possess size but are comfortable facing the basket and operating after pick-and-pop actions. Aminata Gueye provides the more traditional interior presence, while Cassandre Prosper and Migna Touré add another layer of athleticism on the wings.

The offense should not end when the first ball screen ends. Expect handoffs, re-screens and quick attacks against a defense that has already shifted, with multiple players capable of maintaining the advantage.

Defensively, USK has the personnel to switch across the two through four positions and apply pressure without immediately needing to send help.

Availability complicates the opening game. Gueye remains with Golden State in the WNBA Finals, while Astier’s New York season ended only recently, leaving little turnaround before the opener against Bourges.

That could force USK toward an even more mobile early-season identity. Without Gueye, there are lineups where virtually every frontcourt player is comfortable operating away from the rim.

That creates offensive possibilities while placing even more responsibility on the collective rebounding.

Emlak Konut

No team did more to improve its reputation during the qualifiers than Emlak Konut.

Going into Athens and beating Panathinaikos 91-68 was impressive. Going to Girona a week later and winning 81-69 removed any possibility of dismissing the first performance as one great night.

The offense already looks remarkably clear for a new group.

Lindsay Allen is usually responsible for creating the first advantage. Réka Lelik is devastating attacking the second side once the defense has already been shifted. Stephanie Mavunga and Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah provide the screens and interior pressure that make those perimeter reads possible.

One sequence appeared repeatedly through qualifying: an empty-side pick-and-roll flowing directly into a middle pick-and-roll.

The difficulty is not the concept itself but the number of ways Emlak can enter it. By the time Lelik attacks the second action, the weak-side defenders may already have changed responsibilities once.

Her qualifier numbers show how comfortable she was in that structure. Lelik averaged 19.5 points, seven assists and 5.5 rebounds, including 29 points in the road win at Girona.

Defensively, Emlak is physical and heavily prepared. The coverage can change by opponent because Murat Alkaş has enough size to build different game plans around Mavunga, Kunaiyi-Akpanah and Elisa Penna.

The qualifiers already showed that this preparation travels. Emlak did not win two comfortable home games. It eliminated two strong teams on their own floors.

Calling them a surprise now almost feels unfair. They have already shown they belong.

AZS UMCS Lublin

Lublin has essentially built a new team.

Only three players remain from last season’s roster, with Matea Tadić, Catherine Reese, Kourtney Treffers and Shyanne Sellers among the important additions.

Marek Lebiedziński moves into the head-coaching role with a group that should try to establish offense from the inside out.

Reese and Treffers give Lublin two players capable of creating genuine interior pressure, while Tadić provides a pick-and-roll organizer who can keep the ball moving around those post threats. Sellers may become particularly important because her size gives the perimeter another way to create without forcing everything through Tadić.

That balance matters.

If Lublin becomes too post-dependent, EuroLeague defenses will dig down, load the paint and force the guards to prove they can make enough perimeter shots. If the guards establish penetration first, the bigs become much harder to help against.

Defense may require even more collective work.

This is not a roster built around one elite rim protector cleaning up mistakes. The point-of-attack defense has to hold, help has to arrive on time and everyone has to rebound.

Lublin does not need to be spectacular to reach the Second Round. It needs to be consistently connected.

Tango Bourges Basket

Bourges remains one of the great names of European women’s basketball.

This roster simply asks different questions than many previous versions.

The frontcourt is smaller and more mobile, which should push Olivier Lafargue toward a style built around speed and collective decision-making rather than overwhelming opponents through size.

Expect plenty of drag screens before the defense gets established, spread pick-and-roll in the half court and a healthy mix of off-ball actions and post touches.

The important phrase is quick decisions.

Bourges does not want to survive through multi-dribble isolation. Alix Duchet needs to create the first shift, while Marie-Paule Dally, Shakayla Thomas and Sydney Wallace can attack once the defense has moved. Maëva Djaldi-Tabdi becomes central to how the frontcourt connects those possessions.

Defensively, the smaller construction has an obvious purpose. Bourges wants to pressure the ball and switch actions both on and away from it.

The concern comes when the ball reaches a genuine low-post center.

Without the traditional oversized interior anchor of previous Bourges teams, preventing those catches becomes as important as defending them. Guards have to make entry passes difficult, weak-side help has to arrive early and the entire lineup must rebound.

For now, the priority is simple.

Get through the group first.

Gameday One:

Emlak Konut vs. AZS UMCS Lublin

Gameday One:

ZVVZ USK Praha vs. Tango Bourges Basket