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Round 5: Pregame quotes and injury reports

Round 5: Pregame quotes and injury reports

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Euroleague.net Staff

Round 5: Pregame quotes and injury reports

Check out what the protagonists are saying ahead of Round 5 of the 2025-26 EuroCup season, and who might be missing in action.

Tuesday, October 28

Panionios Cosmorama Travel Athens vs. Dolomiti Energia Trento (18:30 CET)

Ilias Zouros, Panionios head coach

"It’s another tough game in a demanding competition. Despite the injury problems we’re facing, we want to show a respectable performance."

Markel Starks, Panionios guard

"Big game. It’s a must-win situation. I think there's been a lot of frustration but the guys are trying to pull it together, and I think we're going to have a good show tomorrow."

Panionios injury report: Tyler Whal, Mihalis Lountzis and Jaylen Hands are all ruled out.

Davide Dusmet, Trento assistant coach

"It's going to be a tough road game: they've just changed coach and will definitely want to bounce back. We're continuing our development process, aware that we still need to improve on several details, both in attack and defense. The away win in Varese was very important, but it must not be seen as the end goal: we must continue to progress and build the team chemistry that is essential for a long and demanding season like ours. Panionios is a team that combines a mix of Greek and American players with experience in Europe. They have quality big men, whom we will have to be good at limiting."

Peyton Aldridge, Trento forward

"We have a very important game on Tuesday because we want to get back to winning ways in the EuroCup too. The victory in Varese in Serie A was significant, and we want to continue on that path, bringing the good feelings we had there to Athens too. We want to continue playing with speed and physicality, improving day by day. The coaching staff is doing an excellent job in preparing for the game: we are ready and determined to win this important challenge."

Hamburg Veolia Towers vs. U-BT Cluj-Napoca (19:30 CET)

Benka Barloschky, Hamburg head coach

"Cluj is extremely strong offensively, they play at a high pace and statistically have the best guard in the competition in their ranks in Russell. He is the linchpin and creates almost 40 points for his team per game. That's an extremely good stat. In Creek and Miletic, they also have two very strong players in the inside positions. Defensively, however, they are also vulnerable, conceding almost 100 points on average. So it will depend on which team proves to be the most stable tomorrow."

Jared Grey, Hamburg forward

"We have to be very aggressive and, above all, stop Cluj's fast breaks. They are one of the best teams in transition. That's exactly what we've been focusing on over the last few days. Training has been really tough, but also really good. We're trying to put the results of the first games out of our minds and focus solely on tomorrow's game – and then we hope we can finally turn things around."

Mihai Silvasan, Cluj head coach

"It’s an important game for us, coming after the painful loss in Split, in ABA League. From there we traveled straight to Hamburg, where we’ll play on Tuesday. We really want to win and take things step by step, focusing on each game, trying to improve and perform better every time. I hope we find our rhythm, play a good game, and come back home with the win."

Karel Guzman, Cluj forward

"In this competition, every game is tough and important, no matter where our opponents are in the standings. We really want to win, build momentum, and climb up the table."

Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem vs. Aris Thessaloniki Betsson (20:00 CET)

Igor Milicic, Aris head coach

"My first game at Aris is on the road against Hapoel Jerusalem, a team that I am familiar with. Our scouting coaches made a scouting on their own but I’ve made my own scouting too. There are a lot of changes in the process while the season is going and it's not easy, but we are not looking for excuses. Players are trying to do the best what I'm asking them to do. Like I said, if it's going to be enough for the win, we'll see. That's secondary for now. We will go for the win but what it has to be changed is the energy of the team."

Elijah Mitrou-Long, Aris guard

"We have a tough game ahead, against a very good team. Hapoel has quality and depth in its roster and is one of the favorites for the top of our group. We must build in the win against Panionios and play with the same focus and intensity. We have a new coach and we are still learning his philosophy, but tomorrow we must be decisive and determined to get the result we want."

Wednesday, October 29

Besiktas GAIN Istanbul vs. Cosea JL Bourg-en-Bresse (17:00 CET)

Lietkabelis Panevezys vs. Buducnost VOLI Podgorica (18:00 CET)

NINERS Chemnitz vs. ratiopharm ulm (19:00 CET)

Rodrigo Pastore, Chemnitz head coach

"Very important home game for us against a team that started the EuroCup competition with three consecutive wins. They have also added an experienced player like Klepeisz who already knows the system very well so he won't need much time to integrate himself within the team and will be available to play right away. Our defensive transition and one-on-one defense will be the keys of the game for us to have a chance to win the game."

Robbie Beran, Chemnitz forward

"Ulm is a team we saw at the beginning the season in league play. They got the best of us then but now we have a good opportunity coming up to respond. Expecting a high-level competitive game."

Slask Wroclaw vs. Umana Reyer Venice (19:00 CET)

Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana vs. Neptunas Kleipeda (19:30 CET)

Zvezdan Mitrovic, Cedevita Olimpija head coach

"On Sunday evening we returned from our Istanbul-Sarajevo tour. It was exhausting, especially considering that we’re still playing with a shortened rotation — we’re missing two big men, which automatically means we have to make different rotations and burden players in unfamiliar positions. I don’t like that, and it’s also visible in the performance of some players who should be playing at a higher level. Still, we’re satisfied with the tour — when you come back with a win, that’s always a good thing. Now we have a game against Neptunas ahead of us, a typical Lithuanian team. On Sunday, in their domestic league game, they scored 117 points without going into overtime. They play excellent offensive basketball and have size, toughness, and aggressiveness — like all Lithuanian teams. Neptunas is definitely a different kind of opponent than those we’ve faced so far. They have depth, great shooting, and good rebounding. We started preparations on Monday with video analysis, and we’ll continue on Tuesday and Wednesday. That’s the rhythm we have to accept — analysis and implementing new ideas with our players. Both teams have about the same amount of time to prepare for the game. I definitely regret that we don’t have more players available, as some are really overloaded. It’s not easy, but the players’ attitude is excellent — on Monday we had a good practice, and you could clearly see they’re motivated."

Rok Radovic, Cedevita Olimpija forward

"Neptunas is an interesting team that likes to play fast basketball. We’ll have to play very good defense if we want to keep our winning streak going in Stožice. You can definitely feel a bit of fatigue among us from covering multiple positions, but that just makes our motivation and desire to win even stronger."

Thomas Kennedy, Cedevita Olimpija center

"We’ll definitely need to bring a lot of energy. We have to enter the game against Neptunas with the same energy we showed in the last quarter and overtime against Bosna in Sarajevo. We also rely on our fans, who give us that energy, so we want to keep our successful home streak going."