Euroleague Basketball: Maccabi TA to discover Euroleague rivals today

3 teams Maccabi will not face in the regular season are Unicaja Malaga, Cibona Zagreb and AJ Milano.

By ALLON SINAI
Pini Gershon in action 248.88 ap (photo credit: AP [file])
Pini Gershon in action 248.88 ap
(photo credit: AP [file])
Maccabi Tel Aviv will learn the identity if its opponents in the Euroleague 2009-10 regular season in Barcelona on Wednesday. The 24 teams in European basketball's premier competition were divided into six levels, with team performance during the last Euroleague season the main criteria for the seeding levels. Therefore, Maccabi, which failed to progress past the Top 16 last season, has been placed in the third seeding group. The top seeds are the four teams which reached last spring's Final Four - champion Panathinaikos, runner-up CSKA Moscow, third-place Barcelona and fourth-place Olympiacos. Three teams Maccabi will not face in the regular season are Unicaja Malaga, Cibona Zagreb and AJ Milano, which are also in the third seeding group. The 10-game Euroleague regular season is set to begin on October 21 and end January 14. The six-game Top 16 will open on January 27 and conclude on March 11. The quarterfinal playoffs, best-of-five series, will start March 23 and could extend as long as April 7. The 2009 Final Four will be from May 7 to 9. Meanwhile, Maccabi announced on Tuesday night that it has completed the signing of Polish center Maciej Lampe. The 24-year-old, who is expected to be the team's starting center, played for Khimki Moscow last season, averaging 11.1 points and 4.7 rebounds per game. Hapoel Jerusalem will be drawn in the Eurocup's qualifying round on Wednesday. Jerusalem, which is seeded in the draw, will play on the road in the first leg on October 20 and will host the return leg a week later. Hapoel Galil/Gilboa will only learn on Wednesday if it will be drawn in the Eurocup. The team was promised by the BSL that it would replace league runner-up Maccabi Haifa in the group stage, which decided to forfeit its place, but the Euroleague refused to do so and only on Wednesday morning will Galil find out if it has got a place in the group stage or in the qualifiers, or perhaps no place at all. "This is all politics," Galil owner Haim Ohayon said. "There is no reason we should pay the price for this. We are only willing to play in the group stage as the BSL promised us."