Maccabi Tel Aviv placed with Caja Laboral, Montepaschi Siena, CSKA Moscow; Barcelona, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Real Madrid get top.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Despite making the Final Four last season, Maccabi Tel Aviv was not given one of the four top seeds for Thursday’s Euroleague group draw for the 2011/12 campaign, which will be held in Barcelona.The yellow-and-blue was placed in the second quartet of teams, which also includes Caja Laboral, Montepaschi Siena and CSKA Moscow, while the top honors went to Barcelona, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and Real Madrid.This year’s selection of seeds was based on a new format using a strict calculation formula, one which takes into account a team’s success over the past three seasons.The 22 directly qualified teams will be divided into six groups with four teams in each group. Two teams from the same country cannot coincide in the same regular-season group, except for Spain, which has five teams participating in the competition.