BELGRADE, Serbia – In a city renowned for its basketball legends, Unicaja emerged as the champions of the 2023-24 Basketball Champions League (BCL) on Sunday, after a thrilling final against Lenovo Tenerife, ending with a score of 80-75. This victory marks their maiden title in the competition.
The Andalucian team has made history by becoming the first club to be crowned on the revolutionary ASB GlassFloor. This innovative technology offered a glimpse into the future of basketball to fans inside Belgrade Arena and to TV viewers around the world.
Unicaja’s victory in the eighth season of the BCL has finally removed a thorn that had been in their side during the past year, when they fell in the 2023 Semi-Finals. As fate would have it, Unicaja succeeded on the BCL throne the very team that had defeated them in that Semi-Final clash, Telekom Baskets Bonn.
Kendrick Perry, the 31-year-old point guard of the newly crowned champions, was presented with the Final Four MVP award by 2024 Final Four ambassador Zeljiko Rebraca, a day after being named in the 2023-24 Basketball Champions League Star Lineup First Team. Perry had 17 points in 20 minutes on the floor in the Final.
Earlier on Sunday, UCAM Murcia narrowly defeated Peristeri bwin 87-84 in the 3rd-Place Game, marking the narrowest ever margin in the eight years of the competition.
This victory was led by a BCL career-high 22 points from Ludvig Hakanson. Murcia celebrated their second-ever podium finish in the BCL, after finishing in third place also at the 2018 Final Four, in Athens.
Marcelinho Huertas of Tenerife was voted Season 8 MVP on Saturday, while Peristeri playcaller Vasilis Spanoulis was named Coach of the Season, headlining the star-studded list of individual awards and the Star Lineup First Team and Second Team for the 2023-24 Basketball Champions League Season that concluded in Belgrade.
