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Mathematically speaking, this is a justified margin. Limburg are at an average of 163 points in the championship, Antwerp at 163. But I think the bookmakers didn't take into account the trend, especially at Limburg. Their first head-to-head finished at 145 points, and Limburg scored only 70 points. That was early in the season when they struggled with injuries, and their roster was not complete. They played a fast-paced game, because both teams prefer fast basketball, run-and-gun style (Limburg over 70 shots from the floor, the Giants over 60), but it was obvious that was still not it.
Limburg's coach Brian Lynch set the team up in the meantime, so they have been at an average of 166,1 points in the last 10 rounds, and they went over today's margin in 9 of the last 11 games (not only against defensively strong Oostende and Spirou). Against faster teams in the championship at home, they went over against Okapi, twice against Leuven and Willebroek, didn't go over only against Antwerp while they were in a bad period. The key thing is that they have improved offensively, they played their last game against Antwerp at 193 points (Limburg had 65 shots and 33 free throws, Antwerp 65 shots, 27 free throws).
Antwerp are led by a young coach, Roel Moors, whose philosophy is similar to Lynch's, because they both learned from the same man, Paul Vervaeck. Antwerp's offensive numbers are even better than Limburg's. They went over today's margin in away games at Okapi, at home finished at 161, at Leuven 171, at home 174.
Antwerp have mostly went over against teams similar to Limburg this season. Limburg are in fine form, we have two teams with similar playing style and I expect them to be over their averages in the championship this season. Details

Okapi and Limburg are two fastest-paced teams in the Blegian championship. They prefer the run-and-gun in its purest form. Okapi average 168 in the championship, 173 home. They didn't go over today's margin just against tough Brussels home, against the toughest team Oostende and very defense-oriented Liege, whom they trashed both times. The only game that doesn't fit in is the one against Antwerp when they got limited to 163 but Okapi could not stand up to the opponents because they were weakened. Their top shooters were not fully fit and didn't play much. They went over 170 with Brussels recently, over 180 with defense-oriented Mons and over 180 with Spirou.
Limburg had a poor start to the season on account of injury struggles. They got completed later on and got their numbers up. They are close to 170 points away. Granted, they didn't go over this margin in the last 5 rounds but they didn't play teams who would allow that (Spirou, Oostende, Liege, Brussels). They went over this margi with all the faster-paced teams (Willebroek, Leuven, Antwerp).
What's most important are the h2h meetings which are always fast-paced. That is only logical since both teams like to try and outrun the opponents. They met 4 times this season. They went at 184 at Okapi's arena, at 185 in the Cup. They were at 173 at Limburg's arena in the championship and at 169 in the cup semifinal second-leg. The cup game was very important. Looking at the last 3 seasons, they met 14 times and went over this margin 12 times. They stayed at 166 once. Details

The first game of the women's Euroleague quarter final is played in best-of-three system. The home team UMMC from Ekaterinburg opened the competition with a defeat at Avenida, then recorded 13 wins and showed why they are called the Dream team. If they had played in the WNBA, they would probably fight for the title. The Russian players are in the background, their key figures are Americans Griner, Taurasi, Toliver and Nolan. They added Spaniard Lyttle to Griner in the paint, and there are also Torrens, Meesseman... That is pretty much like CSKA Moscow acquiring the best NBA point-guard, strongest center, great guards and wingers, and 3-4 great European NBA players. UMMC won all home games, by halftime they were in the lead by 12 against Sopron and Bourges, by 8 Avenida, Hataya by 41, Lille by 22, Polkowice by 10 and Nadezda by 1. We should point out that against Polkowice and Nadezda they had already secured the top position and coach Lange made a lot of rotations. In the Russian championship, they defeated Nadezda 89-57 a few days ago (in the Euroleague they can play with all 8 foreign players, but only with 5 in the Russian Championship).
Famila won at weak Gyor and Wisla. They lost to stronger teams, but the only relevant games are the ones at Fenerbahce and Kursk. At Fener they ewere down by 13 at halftime, at Kursk by 5, but Kursk had already secured the top position, while Famila were fighting for the quarter-final. On Saturday they lost in the Italian championship 52-78 to Rague (6th in the league standings). Their key player, Miyem, played for only 8 minutes, she is still not completely fit, and the situation is not simple for them. Their other key player, Anderson (10,2 points and 5,6 rebounds in Euroleague) is also struggling with an injury. Miyem is their best scorer in the Euroleague with 14,1 points, and Yacoubou (11,8 pts, 9,6 rebounds) has been out a while. WNBA player Yacoubou could physically handle UMMC frontcourt line, but this way, I doubt they can handle them.
The knock-out stage will further motivate the Russian team, and I don't believe the Italians will be able to parry them in this condition. UMMC will not leave anything up to chance, I expect them to start the game strong, and decide the winner by halftime. The second game is on Friday in Italy. Details

It's hard to say that any championship game is as unimportant as this one, but the one on Wednesday against Brose and Ludwigsburg was certainly less important than today's which will be played in the semi-finals of the German cup in Berlin. Brose on Wednesday won with +9, they weren't that great, but coach Andrea Trinchieri calculated, and that was obvious. He decided to rest Zisis, Melli and Radosevic, lowered play-time for some standard players, so the best scorer was young Nikolic who probably won't even play today. Trinchieri didn't want to reveal everything before today's match.
Brose's motivation won't come in question; under Italian's lead they never won the cup, in the last four seasons the trophy has been slipping away. The match against Ludwigsburg can be compared to the one against Bayreuth. In the championship Brose barely beat this season great Bayreuth, only in overtime, but in the quarter-finals when they were fully focused, they beat them in an away game with +23, by the end of the first half it was +25. Tomorrow the cup finals are up, I expect Brose to start out strong today. On Wednesday they were leading against Ludwigsburg with +9 by half-time (41-32), in Ludwigsburg +11 (33-22).
Ludwigsburg's record in Bundesliga is 9-11; with some comparable teams it was like this: they lost at home to Bayern with -10 (at half-time -10), they lost -3 to Bayreuth (-14 at half-time), -29 to Bayern (-23), -17 at Bayreuth (-2), -17 against Ulm (-14). The only plus is the win against Ulm in the cup quarter-finals, but at the time they were the hosts, and Ulm were quite bad. I'd call it an exception. Ludwigsburg don't do well against strongest German teams, and motivated and complete Brose are one level above. The pre-season game against Brose doesn't have much significance, but considering they played it on neutral grounds in Bayreuth, and today they're playing on neutral grounds again, we should add that Bamberg team won with 82-63, at half-time it was 45-29. Details

Lithuanian Cup quarter-final couldn't have come in worse time for Neptunas. It is played on a single win, Zalgiris are hosts, and they will also host the Final Four. Neptunas were on a 6 game winning run when the club's financial problems escalated, and in the past month they lost four key players. Center Klimavicius, their best scorer Baron, their best assistant, point guard Drew and Johnson. All of them played in Neptunas' last win over Dzukija in the championship (Johnson and Baron were their best scorers), when they left, their winning run ended immediately. They lost to Juventus by 9 at home on Saturday, they had only 7 players in rotation, and we should expect a similar thing today because they are still looking for some replacements.
They faced Zalgiris twice this season, they lost by 10 away, but that was in the period when Zalgiris had a difficult fixture schedule in Euroleague and only 48 hours after their game against Baskonia, three days before their clash against Fener. Zalgiris won at Neptunas by 28. I also expect a convincing performance by Zalgiris today. They have recently defeated teams like CSKA and Barcelona at home, and this is a specific game, there is no return fixture, so we should expect the home team to be highly focused, they have no Euroleague games this week, and they are focused on the Cup. Considering the condition at Neptunas, the quality difference is huge, bigger than in the past. In my opinion, the best option is full time handicap because of the short rotation in away team, who will drop as the game progresses, and I doubt they can keep up for long. Details

I don't want to hear excuses about tough rhythm and that we weren't complete. Our game was embarrassing and unacceptable.
AEK's coach Zdovc said that after they barely beat Lavri last week. Lavrni are not in bad form but they were still expected to do better. The team from Athens had a 6-point lead by half time and later did much better. Sakota didn't play as much as he normally does but he will today. Vasileiadis is back, Milosevic and Mavroeidis are questionable but McGrath recently joined the team. They have enough players and shoulnd't have problems with that. AEK are expected to react, especially since they normally do better home. They lost only to Besiktas and have 7-0 in the championship. They lost only to Besiktas, they had a 17-point difference against Apollon, a 10-point against Aris, a 20-point against Lefkadas, an 11-point by Rethymno, a 25-point by Lavri. They didn't have a double-digit difference against Koroivos (had a lead of 14 in the Cup against them) and Promitheas but their schedule was better than today. AEK now had a week to prepare for this since they had a break in CL.
Kymis' coach says that he doesn't know what is happening to them the last few weeks. They are on a 4-game losing run and 0-7 away. They have not found a replacement for the important center Morgan. The rather important guard Kostov is injured. Last weekend against Koroivos, they were down by 25 away. Before that, they were down by 24 against Koroivos, by 16 against Aris, by 12 to Kolossos, by 27 to Panathinaikos and by 7 to Lavri. They had a lead only against bottom table Lefkadas and even managed to lose that in the end. They were at -36 at half time in the Cup. Home against AEK in the first head to head they had -32 at half time. Details

Spirou have been far from consistent this season, especially at the start, but they got more consistent later on, and started following the coach Fulvio Bastianini's instructions. He even quit at one point because the players lacked approach and eagerness. Now they're defense oriented. Their average in the Belgian championship is 163.2 points, a bit under 159 at home, but most Belgian teams play very fast basketball, so those matches cannot really be compared to the one against Mons, their regional rival. Looking at Spirou's home matches that are relevant for this one, there's the one against Oostende whom they beat 74-69, and maybe the one against Brussels that ended at 154 points. They stayed under this margin against the super fast Limburg (154), and Willebroek (140) (144 on the road against Oostende when they fell apart, and Spirou were 17 points down in the first half).
Mons are the most defensively oriented team in the league. They sometimes get to the high numbers against run and gun teams like Limburg, Okapi and Willebroek, but that only happened four times in 17 league matches. Mons average under 149 points, and under 148 in the last ten rounds. They played Oostende four times this season, 145 and 130 points in the championship, and 134 and 133 against Brussels. They stayed under this margin in two cup quarterfinal matches against Oostende, when Mons couldn't match them the right way, but it's hard to expect them to fall apart against Spirou tonight.
The first duel between these two ended at 134 points, in their last ten championship and cup duels, they went over this margin only once. In those championship matches they played this season that are relevant, Spirou went over only against Brussels. It should be noted, though, that Spirou played much faster at the beginning of the season, and they were weaker defensively compared to now. Details

Stelmet are not at last season's level but they are still the best Polish team. Playing in CL shifted their focus from the championship but they have been making up for it lately. They can focus on the championship this week entirely. They trashed the home team by 27 int he second round and limited them to 67 points. I expect Targnobrzeg under 70 again. Stelmet allow around 71 on average, have the top defense in the league and have allowed 70 away to the best offense Turow and Dabrowa, who do well home. Against teams comparable to Tarnobrzeg, they have 63 against Stelmet, 68 Slupsk, 64 Polpharma, 69 Trefl. Only Lublin is actually comparable to the home team but the other teams can be compared when it comes to game style.

Targnobrez hit 72 on average, have one of the worst offensive ends in the league. Their home average is 70,5. They hit 51 against Turow, 73 Torun, 76 Slupsk, 75 Anwil but those teams cannot compare to Stelmet defense wise. With those more defense-oriented, they hit 60 (Stal), 69 Koszalin. Extra problem today is the absence of important players Brown. He averages 14,9 points and 5.6 assists and spends over 33 minutes on the floor (17 points and 7 assists against Stelmet). Home team half time under is a good option as well. Details