BJK Akatlar Arena is located in Istanbul, Turkey. The arena is the home ground of Beşiktaş. The Istanbul Municipality had handed over its rights to multi-sports team Beşiktaş. A venerable club in Turkish sports, Besiktas JK ColaTurka, comes off one of its finest seasons ever to take a chance at even more prestige in the 2008-09 Eurocup. Besiktas brings great tradition to the task of trying to remain in basketball’s upper echelon both at home and abroad. Although Besiktas was founded as a multi-sport club in 1903, its basketball section came along much later. Besiktas traveled a long road to basketball success, finally lifting a Turkish League title in 1975 and then adding its first national cup in 1987. Besiktas spent some more years struggling before reaching the end of the century with steady momentum toward improvement. The "Black Eagles" placed fifth in Turkey in 1998 and made it to the next season's Korac Cup quarterfinals. The club had to wait until the 2003-04 season to make it to the Turkish League semifinals, then took part in the 2005 FIBA Champions Cup quarterfinals. The 2007-08 campaign marked another step forward for Besiktas, which took the ULEB Cup by storm when it became the competition's first team ever to finish the regular season unbeaten. That paved the way to the Final Eight, where heartbreak came in the form of a close quarterfinals loss. Back home, Besiktas finished first in the Turkish League regular season but got ambushed in the semifinals. Besiktas spent the summer reaching for more with a full blast of new talent to join one main holdover, all-around contributor Rick Apodaca. Helping him this season will be scorers Mire Chatman and Marcus Faison, big men Mario Austin, Jovo Stanojevic and Adem Oren, and veterans Muratcan Guler and Haluk Yildirim, both of whom have been with Besiktas before. Power forward Cevher Ozer and promising young guards Mehmet Yagmur and Arin Sogancioglu round out a lineup that has plenty of balance in size, experience and talent. Under new head coach Hakan Demir, the challenge for Besiktas is to keep growing as it has been all decade, which should guarantee that the team is a serious contender in the Eurocup.
Despite already being eliminated, Besiktas Cola Turka put its stamp on Group C by ending Benetton Basket's undefeated season with a shocker 80-89 road win in Treviso, Italy on Tuesday. An amazing 0-18 run with under 5 minutes to play started with forward Cevher Ozer blasting 3 three-point shots in 45 seconds to put Besiktas ahead for good. Bennetton fell to 4-1 and now must beat Khimki away next week to finish first. Had it not lost to Besiktas, Benetton could have lost by up to 17 points against Khimki and still finished first. Besiktas improved to 2-3. Ozer finished with 27 points, forming a dynamic duo with Mire Chatman, who scored 30 while collecting 8 rebounds and 5 assists. Adem Oren added 12 points and Jimmy Baxter 11 for the winners, who were down 76-71 before the final push. Gary Neal led Benetton with 20 points, while Sandro Nicevic put up a double-double of 19 points and 10 assists. Matteo Soragna chipped in 11 points and Radoslav Rancik 10.
BC Khimki took a huge step to reaching the Last 16 of the Eurocup with a convincing 91-65 victory at home over Besiktas Cola Turka. The win improved Khimki’s record to 3-1 in Group C while Besiktas dropped to 1-3. Vitaly Fridzon led Khimki with 14 points while Jorge Garbajosa was the only other player in double figures with 11. But Khimki was able to go deep into its bench with all 12 players scoring at least 2 points and nine hitting at least 7 points. Khimki dominated the rebounds with a 38-19 advantage. Besiktas was led by Cevher Ozer with 16 points while Mire Chatman added 15 and Jimmy Baxter had 12 in the losing effort.
