The Basketball Champions League held their regular season group stage draw in which three Israeli teams will be taking part in. Hapoel Holon, Hapoel Jerusalem and Bnei Herzliya will all take part in the 7th BCL season which looks to be the strongest yet.

The regular season competition will be the same as last campaign with 8 groups of four teams where each will play one another both at home and on the road for a total of 6 games. At the end of the regular season, the top team in each group will advance to the Round of 16 group stage while the 2nd and 3rd place teams will play a best of 3 Play In tournament where groups will cross over to complete the second round groups.

Those groups will then play home and road games against each other with the top two teams advancing to the best of 3 quarterfinal series with the winners heading to the Final 4.

Prior to the regular season group stage draw a qualification draw took place which will determine the final 4 teams that will join the 28 pre-determined clubs who have already advanced to the regular season group stage.

Hapoel Holon who not only won the Israel League Championship but also advanced to last year’s Final Four were drawn into Group C along with Galatasaray (Turkey) who finished in 3rd place domestically while advancing to the BCL Round of 16, Oostende (Belgium) the Belgian League champion and Legia Warsaw (Poland) who participated in the Europe Cup last season.

Hapoel Jerusalem were drawn into Group E along with Ludwigsburg (Germany) who finished in 3rd place in the BCL last season, Darussafaka (Turkey) who was a semifinalist in the domestic league while featuring in the BCL Round of 16 and a qualifier.

Lastly, Bnei Herzliya were drawn into a very difficult Group H with Tenerife (Spain) last season’s BCL Champion, Rytas Vilnius (Lithuania) who won their domestic league and Peristeri (Greece) who have recently appointed legendary guard Vassilis Spanoulis as their head coach.

The regular season will get underway in early October.