BCL 2026-27 Group A: Rytas Vilnius, Trabzonspor, Nanterre and Sabah — full breakdown and predictions

The Basketball Champions League's 2026-27 season (Season 11) tips off October 6, 2026, with 54 teams involved across the continent. Thirty clubs were ratified with direct berths back in June 2026, with two more set to arrive from the Qualification Round tournaments to round out a 32-team Regular Season field; up to 21 clubs eliminated in the BCL Qualifiers will instead drop into the FIBA Europe Cup.

Rytas Vilnius arrives as champion, but a very different roster

Rytas Vilnius won the Basketball Champions League last season and enters 2026-27 as the team every other club in the group is chasing. Its confirmed 12-man roster for the new campaign includes guards Michael Devoe and Cassius Winston, playmaker Augustas Marčiulionis, forwards Ricky Lindo Jr. and Gytis Radzevičius, and big men Artūras Gudaitis, Gytis Masiulis and Oskaras Pleikys, under head coach Nedas Pacevičius.

The turnover from last season is significant. Jerrick Harding (16.8 points, 2.4 assists in LKL play last season), Jordan Walker (13.8 points, 4.4 assists), Ignas Šargiūnas, Martynas Echodas, Speedy Smith, Jacob Wiley and Jordan Caroline have all departed and none appear on the new roster. Simonas Lukošius, another 2025-26 contributor who averaged 6.5 points for Rytas in the Lithuanian league, has since moved on to Unicaja Málaga's BCL roster.

What remains is a core built around continuity at the top and inexperience at the bottom. Artūras Gudaitis (12.7 points, 7.2 rebounds in last season's LKL), Marčiulionis (12.1 points, 5.1 assists) and Masiulis (11.0 points, 4.4 rebounds) return as proven contributors, while 18-year-old Ignas Urbonas — the youngest player on the roster by six years relative to the next-youngest returnee — represents the club's clearest development bet for the coming season.

Rytas got an early measuring stick at the FIBA Intercontinental Cup in Beijing this September, finishing 2nd with a 3-1 record after falling 86-89 to NBA G League United in the final. Newcomer Kay Bruhnke set the tone there, averaging 14.5 points and an efficiency of 17.8 across the tournament — best on the roster — while Marčiulionis added 13.3 points and ranked 3rd in the tournament in assists per game at 5.3. Gudaitis ranked 3rd in rebounding (6.8) and 1st in blocks (1.5) across the entire field, and Winston, newly arrived after four seasons in Europe averaging around 14 points and four assists per year according to a Champions League-affiliated preview, ranked 2nd in tournament steals at 2.0 per game.

The signature performance came in a 107-89 rout of RSSB Tigers, when Rytas shot 51.4% from the field and buried 16 3-pointers, Bruhnke scored a game-high 22, Devoe dished a team-high 8 assists and Lindo Jr. logged a double-double. In the semi-final win over Boca Juniors, Devoe and Marčiulionis each scored 14 and Bruhnke added 10, continuing what FIBA's own tournament report called his "run of double-digit games." With that kind of depth and a proven system, Rytas projects to finish 1st in the group.

Trabzonspor leans on its returning backcourt

Trabzonspor enters the new BCL season with its core scoring identity intact from a season ago. Across all competitions in 2025-26, guard Troy Caupain posted 14.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 5.4 assists with a 17.8 performance index rating over 30.5 minutes across 46 games, making him the club's clearest two-way engine. Marcus Keene, despite shooting just 28.8% from 3-point, still averaged 16.8 points and 6.0 assists, while Brady Manek contributed 13.4 points and 6.4 rebounds on a much stronger 40.4% clip from beyond the arc.

Emanuel Terry rounded out the frontcourt production with a 16.6 performance index rating, giving the club a legitimate interior presence to pair with its backcourt scoring. Xavier Tillman, meanwhile, played in 82 games across competitions but at only 2.3 minutes per outing on average, a marginal role that leaves his impact on this season's BCL campaign difficult to project.

With Caupain, Keene and Manek all forming a proven, multi-season scoring nucleus, Trabzonspor looks built to compete for a top-half finish, but the group's overall shape — anchored by a defending champion and a club, Nanterre, that has aggressively retooled its frontcourt — points to a 3rd-place finish for the Turkish side.

Nanterre rebuilds around new frontcourt arrivals

Nanterre has been the most active club in Group A on the transfer market, with 19 total roster moves recorded for the 2026-27 season — by far the most fully documented turnover among the four clubs. Out go Roko Prkačin, Ahmad Caver, Zakai Zeigler and Mathis Dossou-Yovo. In come Devin McGlockton, Jwan Roberts and Xavier Castaneda, reshaping the frontcourt and backcourt alike.

McGlockton arrives having averaged 9.5 points and 6.8 rebounds at his prior club, while Castaneda joins after shooting 36.7% from 3-points and Roberts after appearing in 60 games last season. None of the three has BCL-specific numbers yet with Nanterre, but the profile suggests a frontcourt built for rebounding and interior scoring alongside outside shooting depth.

The returning core still carries last season's production. Benjamin Sene averaged 10.6 points and 5.4 assists in 22.2 minutes across 45 games in all competitions, while 18-year-old Hugo Yimga — born in July 2008 — put up 9.9 points and 4.4 rebounds in 19.1 minutes across 48 games, shooting an efficient 38.7% from 3-point. Yimga stands out as the clearest breakout candidate in the group, a teenager already producing at a rotation level who now gets a full season alongside a retooled supporting cast.

Between Sene's playmaking, Yimga's emergence and three new frontcourt pieces, Nanterre has the ingredients for a competitive season, projecting to a 2nd-place finish behind Rytas.

BC Sabah undergoes a near-total roster overhaul

No club in Group A changed more this offseason than BC Sabah. The Azerbaijani side brought in 12 new players while losing 8 from last season's squad, leaving a 21-man roster with an average height of 199.1cm, an average age of 25.0, ten import players and four nationalities represented.

The new arrivals are almost entirely American imports with varied European and Asian résumés. Quincy Ballard (213cm, 25, from Mississippi State) gives the club real size at center, while Tajuan Agee (206cm, 28, a USA-Philippines dual national arriving from Bourg in France) and Nick Perkins (203cm, 29, from San Germán in Puerto Rico) add frontcourt experience. Evan Bruinsma (204cm, 34) joins from Bnei Herzliya of Israel, a club that is itself part of this season's Basketball Champions League field in a different group. Guard depth comes via Michael Ertel II (27, from HK JinNiu in China) and Charles Manning Jr. (27, from Karşıyaka in Turkey), while Lithuanian forward Mindaugas Šušinskas (204cm, 31) arrives from Girona in Spain.

Sabah also kept its Azerbaijani development pipeline alive, adding 21-year-old Rashid Abbasov from Sheki alongside teenagers Huseyn Mammadov (18, promoted from the club's own junior system) and Huseyn Memmedov (18, from Guba), plus guard Huseyn Qafalanov from Sumqayit. On the departure side, the club lost David Nichols to Oradea, Hassani Gravett and James Eads III to Cantù, Klāvs Čavars to Rīgas Zeļļi, and Keith Jordan to Bourg, among others.

One current Sabah player provides an unexpected thread back to the rest of Group A: forward Justin Tillman (30, 203cm), who joined the club in 2025, previously played for Nanterre. With so much roster continuity lost and so many new faces still needing to gel, Sabah projects as the group's 4th-place finisher heading into October.

Final group ranking: Rytas the clear favorite

Putting the four clubs together, Rytas Vilnius projects to finish 1st in Group A. The defending champion lost seven rotation players from last season but replaced them with a roster that already gelled at the Intercontinental Cup, finishing 2nd there against Boca Juniors and NBA G League United with Bruhnke, Marčiulionis, Gudaitis and Winston all producing at a high level.

Nanterre projects 2nd, built on Sene's playmaking, Yimga's emergence as a genuine breakout prospect, and a frontcourt overhaul that added proven rebounding and shooting in McGlockton, Roberts and Castaneda. Trabzonspor slots in 3rd on the strength of a returning core in Caupain, Keene and Manek that already produced at a high level across last season's competitions, even if the club added less fresh talent than its rivals.

BC Sabah rounds out the group in 4th. The Azerbaijani club's overhaul was the most dramatic in Group A — 12 arrivals against 8 departures — and while the imported talent brings size and varied international experience, that much turnover typically takes time to translate into results on the floor.