After a busy night of European hoops for Israeli teams on Tuesday, Wednesday will feature both Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Holon in action. The Reds will look to pick up the pace in the EuroCup while the purples will try and cement their position in the BCL Play In round or perhaps even get a bye in the Round of 16. Maccabi Ramat Gan defeated VEF Riga to punch their ticket to the Play In round where they will find out later Wednesday whether they will face Reggiana or Szombathely, Hapoel Jerusalem fell in a close game at Hamburg while Maccabi Tel Aviv fell to Baskonia in Belgrade.

Dimitrios Itoudis’s team will look to get back onto the winning track in continental competition when they take on Besiktas at their home away from home in Samokov, Bulgaria (8pm Israel time) after having crushed Nes Ziona in Israeli league action earlier in the week. Hapoel are in 5th place with a 6-5 record in Division A as they will try and move up in the standings in order to have home court advantage in the earlier rounds of the playoffs which will begin in March. The club will be without both and injured Patrick Beverley and Noam Yaacov who suffered a small tear in his quadriceps muscle and will be reevaluated in a week.

“This is a very important match for us,” Itoudis began. “Besiktas is a team that has remained almost the same, with the same philosophy and the same coaching staff. It has players who defend every position, with two quality players in each position. We are facing a big challenge in curbing the creativity and physicality they will bring to the court. We will have to match this physicality and even surpass it and compete from the first second to the last.”

Veteran forward Tomer Ginat added, “Besiktas is a challenging team, but we are focused on ourselves. We all know how important this game as we continue our EuroCup journey. We will have to maintain concentration from the first moment, be aggressive and fight for every possession.”

Under heavy security, Hapoel Holon arrived in Nanterre ahead of the decisive match Wednesday (9pm Israel time) that will close the group stage of the Champions League.

Following threats from pro-Palestinian elements for demonstrations and disturbances before and during the match, the Ministry of Diaspora issued a warning and the French authorities are preparing accordingly.

On the professional side, almost a full squad will be available for head coach Guy Goodes save for the injured Jalen Adams, “This is the last game in the group stage where every result will be meaningful to our progression. Nanterre is a very good home team that scores at a high percentage from beyond the arc and is also very aggressive defensively. We will have to be very focused on taking care of the ball and equalizing their level of energy, effort and aggression on both sides of the court.”