Aris Salonic – U-BT Cluj-Napoca, a crucial match for the Romanian champion in the final round of the EuroCup

After 8 rounds of the current EuroCup season, U-BT Cluj-Napoca has a record of 4 wins and 4 lossesas well as Umana Reyer Venezia, Slask Wroclaw and Aris Salonic. But, thanks to a good match-up, the Romanian champion is above her opponents and occupies the 4th place in the ranking of group A.

Live from 20:00. Aris Thessaloniki – U-BT Cluj-Napoca 0-0

The EuroCup regular season tour will end this week, and U-BT Cluj-Napoca is playing away, on Aris Salonic's field. A week ago, Mihai Silvășan, the head coach of the black and whites, Daron “Fatts” Russell, the leader of the Transylvanian team, and their medical staff were present in the port city of Greece to represent Romania in a 2027 men's basketball World Championship preliminaries matchup.

U-BT took advantage of the competition break to transfer a new player. It's about Nighael Ceaser (25 years old), American basketball player of 2.02 meterswhich evolves as a pivot. He started the season in Bosnia and Herzegovina, at KK Igokea Aleksandrovac.

Ceaser conducted the first training sessions with his new team and traveled to Greece, where U-BT's players also found Dusan Miletic, the pivot who spent last week in the training camp of the Serbian national team.

Three absent for U-BT Cluj-Napoca in the confrontation with Aris Thessaloniki

Silvășan declared that Patrick Richard will not perform today, due to a back injury, and that neither Karel Guzman he will not play, because his flight was canceled, he had several mishaps in Cuba, his native country, in the matches of the World Championship qualifiers.

In addition, Nathan Mensah he did not make the trip, and the Cluj coach did not give more details about the reasons for his absence.

In the confrontation with Aris Thessaloniki, U-BT will find Bryce Jones, the team's former quarterback, who played in Romania in the 2023-2024 season. Ronnie Harrell, the former basketball player of Stela Bucharest, is also part of the Greek team.

Jones is Aris' leading scorer, averaging 17.0 points, 4.5 assists and 3.4 rebounds. He is followed by Amine Noua (16.5 points), one of the most recent transfers of the band from Thessaloniki.

The Greeks also recently transferred Danilo Andjusic and also made a change to the technical bench, the place of Bogdan Karaicic being taken by Igor Milicic.

4-0is U-BT's record in duels with Aris in the last 2 seasons. Meanwhile, the Greeks made major investments.

Igor Milicic, coach of Aris Thessaloniki: “We must not allow them to play freely, at an alert pace”

Obviously, a difficult match awaits us. Cluj plays at a fast pace, and their team is made up mostly of foreign players. The fact that they are not playing in the national championship gives them that advantage.

We are dealing with some injuries and have some question marks as to who will be available to play. Essential to get a positive result will be to have a good defensive transition and not allow them to play freely, at an alert pace, especially in attack. We know how to combine a physical, tough defense with a quick offense when needed

– Igor Milicic, coach of Aris Thessalonikiaccording to euroleaguebasketball.net

An extremely important match for both teams, two teams fighting for access to the Top 6 at the end of the regular season. They have a new manager, a good one, who has sorted things out in the team and brought in three new players in recent times. Aris is an extremely competitive team, especially at home, where everyone knows what kind of atmosphere is created

– Mihai Silvasanaccording to u-bt.basktball