BCL 2026-27 Group G: ALBA Berlin, Igokea m:tel, Slavia Praha and Surne Bilbao — full breakdown and predictions

The 2026-27 BCL Regular Season has grouped four clubs from four different domestic leagues into Group G: ALBA Berlin out of Germany's Bundesliga/BBL, Igokea m:tel from Bosnia and Herzegovina's ABA League, Slavia Praha ERA NBK from the Czech NBL, and Surne Bilbao from Spain's Liga Endesa,. The opening slate is set for October 6 and 7, with Igokea vs Bilbao on October 6 at 8:00 p.m. (Paris time, CEST) and Slavia vs ALBA the following day in Pardubice at 6:00 p.m.

ALBA Berlin's two wins give way to two blowout losses

ALBA Berlin enters the competition under head coach Pedro Calles with a roster built around Jordan Ford, Sam Griesel, Malte Delow, Jack Kayil, Jonas Mattisseck, Joe Wieskamp, Martin Hermannsson, Norris Agbakoko, Brandon Angel, Justin Bean and Julius Böhmer, plus five dual-license players. The club recruited Ford from Bahçeşehir, Wieskamp from Jena, Angel from Hapoel Beer Sheva and Böhmer from Göttingen, joining an established core that includes Bean, Hermannsson, Delow and Mattisseck.

Through four Bundesliga games, Angel is averaging 13.0 points and 4.5 rebounds, Bean 11.5 points and 4.0 rebounds, Kayil 10.3 points and 4.0 assists, Wieskamp 9.5 points, and Ford 9.3 points with 3.8 assists. But the shape of ALBA's season is the real story. Berlin opened 2-0, beating Chemnitz 89-82 and Frankfurt 94-83, before dropping back-to-back games — a 61-95 road loss at Bayern and an 83-98 home defeat to Bamberg — a combined 49-point deficit across the two defeats, and the club is now 2-2 with averages of 81.8 points scored against 89.5 allowed per contest.

Against Bamberg, Kayil still produced 16 points, 3 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks, with Wieskamp adding 16 and Angel 15, but ALBA conceded 98. Norris Agbakoko missed that game with an ankle fracture and Martin Hermannsson sat out with a muscle injury, though that report does not establish whether either will be available for the BCL opener in Pardubice. Berlin's defense, not its scoring talent, is the question mark heading into Group G.

Igokea m:tel opens with a single ABA League statement win

Igokea m:tel arrives in Group G under head coach Nenad Stefanović with a roster blending six returning players — Dragan Milosavljevic, Strahinja Gavrilovic, Aleksandar Lazić, Nathaniel Pierre-Louis, Sandro Antunović and Đorđe Topolović — alongside new arrivals Roman Pen, Haris Delalic and Petar Kovačević from Bosna, Nikola Manojlović from Borac and Lazar Stefanović from FMP.

The club's only competitive result so far is a 97-89 ABA League win over Slovan Bratislava on October 3, 2026. Roman Penn ran the show with 18 points, 9 assists and 3 rebounds, Topolović added 16 points and 7 rebounds, Pierre-Louis scored 15, and Kovačević chipped in 14 points while going 6-of-6 at the free-throw line, with Manojlović posting 9 points and 7 rebounds, per the official ABA statistics page and Bilbao's own opponent preview of Igokea.

After conceding 33 points in the opening quarter, Igokea seized control with a 25-13 second quarter, finishing the game shooting 72.2% on 2-point attempts and 53.3% from 3-points while winning the rebounding battle 34-20. Those shooting numbers are eye-catching, but they come from a single game against a single opponent — a result, not yet a pattern, and the smallest sample of any team in the group heading into the BCL.

Slavia Praha ERA NBK rides the Nymburk merger to a perfect start

Slavia Praha ERA NBK is this group's headline story. In June 2026, Slavia and Nymburk officially merged their sporting, organizational and marketing structures, meaning the Slavia Praha ERA NBK project that debuts in this BCL carries Nymburk's accumulated domestic experience under head coach Oren Amiel, according to ERA Basketball Nymburk's official announcement. The roster includes Javian McCollum, Radovan Mrázek, Ronaldo Segu, Jaromir Bohacik, Travis Harper II, Vojtěch Hruban and Martin Kříž among others.

The results back up the hype. Slavia is 5-0 in the Czech NBL, having beaten USK Praha 88-80, Opava 114-81, Brno 108-96, Olomoucko 88-62 and, most recently, Hradec Králové 101-75 — a run that produces 99.8 points scored and 78.8 conceded per game, for a +21.0 average margin.

Across the first four games, Segu is averaging 15.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.3 assists, Bohačík 14.0 points on 50% shooting from 3-points on six attempts a night, Kříž 12.0 points, and McCollum 11.3 points with 4.3 assists. Segu arrived this summer from Iraklis, McCollum from Leiden and Pauly Paulicap from Manresa. In the Hradec win, Bohačík scored 17, Kříž 15 and McCollum 14, with Slavia out-rebounding its opponent 47-29 and hitting 14-of-34 from deep, per the club's own report. Slavia's BCL opener against ALBA will be played at Pardubice's Enteria Arena rather than the club's Prague home, Královka.

Surne Bilbao brings European pedigree but an uneven ledger

Surne Bilbao enters Group G as the reigning back-to-back FIBA Europe Cup champion. Bilbao's new arrivals include Adam Somogyi, Dan Duscak, Nate Darling, Manex Ansorregi, Bastien Vautier and Ondřej Husták, while the club retained Harald Frey, Margiris Normantas, Darrun Hilliard, Aleix Font, Martin Krampelj, Luke Petrasek and Tryggvi Hlinason.

In the Spanish Liga Endesa, Bilbao is 1-1, having beaten Manresa 107-92 before losing in overtime at Leyma Coruña, 101-104 — a split that works out to 104.0 points scored and 98.0 conceded per game including the extra period. At Coruña, Hilliard scored 17 points and hit the late 3-point shot that forced overtime, Normantas added 16, Frey posted 13 points with 5 assists, and Petrasek scored 11 with 8 rebounds, per Bilbao Basket's own match report.

Group G's samples don't add up to a ranking yet

Four teams, four different leagues, and four wildly different sample sizes make any confident 1-4 ranking premature. Igokea's eye-popping shooting numbers come from one ABA League game; Slavia's are drawn from five Czech NBL games; ALBA's and Bilbao's each from four Bundesliga and two Liga Endesa outings, respectively. None of those samples are directly comparable, and the clearest storylines right now are Slavia's merger-fueled perfect start and ALBA's defensive collapse across its last two Bundesliga games.

Whatever order Group G finishes in, the stakes extend beyond pool play. As with the C/D and E/F pairings already established in this BCL season, second- and third-place finishers in Group G will cross into a best-of-three Play-In series against their counterparts from Group H, keeping every result here relevant well past the group stage.