The club: Besiktas JK Cola Turka
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 The arrival of Besiktas JK Cola Turka to the Final Eight in Turin confirms that a great basketball tradition might just be coming close to its glory days. Besiktas gave birth to its basketball branch on March 10, 1933 in Istanbul for a game against city rivals Galatasaray. By dramatic coincidence, those same both teams will play again, exactly 75 years and one month later, in the ULEB Cup quarterfinals. It is already the highest that either has European competition. Besiktas Jimnastik Club (BJK) had paid its first attention to professional basketball in 1938 and 1939, when the reigning Istanbul champions from Maccabi Beyoglu closed its door. Besiktas hired the stars of the defunct team, players like Jak Habib, Avram Barokas and Hazday Penso, and with them finished second in its first-ever participation in the İstanbul championship. The club had ups and downs for a long time after that, years in which the club was relegated to second division and again promoted to the first. Besiktas became a regular member of the Turkish League starting with the competition's inaugural season, 1967-68. Within the league's first decade, Besiktas rose to its highest point yet, winning that domestic trophy for the 1974-75 season. A pair of second-place finishes followed, and again in 1981-82 Besiktas managed to be runner-up in the both regular season and the playoffs. By 1987, Besiktas was flirting again with greatness under legendary coach Aydan Siyavus, finishing first in the regular season thanks to scoring king Erman Kunter and center Efe Aydan. However, the team fell in the first-round playoff quarterfinals against Galatasaray. After many years without success, Besiktas put ex-player Ihsan Bayulgen in charge as head coach starting the 2003-2004 season, signaling a renovation of the club's basketball branch. Finishing the Turkish League in third place that season, a Besiktas squad featuring guard Khalid El Amin and veteran center Ratko Varda managed to eliminate Ulker in the playoff semifinals, but lost the final series to Efes Pilsen. Nonetheless, the domestic finish combined with a quarterfinal run in the FIBA Europe Cup meant that Besiktas could take encouragement from its biggest success in almost two decades.  In the 2005-206 season, Murat Didin took over as head coach and for another domestic semifinals run that ended with a playoffs loss again to Efes Pilsen. Besiktas did not give up its title hopes after 33 years, however, and for that reason hired current head coach Ergin Ataman, one of the most talented and experienced young coaches of Europe, last summer. The results of that choice are evident as the club has built itself quickly into a challenger for both the Turkish League and ULEB Cup titles. Ataman’s good mixture of skillfull veterans like Preston Shumpert, Sandro Nicevic, Predrag Drobnjak, Rick Apodaca and Christian Dalmau complements homegrown Turkish talents like Sinan Guler, Kaya Peker, Cevher Ozer, Mehmet Yagmur and Erkan Veyseloglu. They became the first undefeated ULEB Cup team ever in the regular season, then pushed through to the Final Eight, where Besiktas has to be considered a major threat to lift the ULEB Cup trophy.
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ULEBCup.com
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