For the second time in his career, former BYU basketball big man Brandon Davies earned All-EuroLeague honors, being named to the second team last Friday.
It’s his first time earning the European equivalent of the All-NBA honors as a member of FC Barcelona after he earned first-team honors with Zalgiris in 2019.
The Utah native will also have his second chance at a EuroLeague championship when FC Barcelona takes on Olimpia Milan this week in the semifinals of the EuroLeague Final Four. The last time Davies reached the EuroLeague Final Four, with Zalgiris in 2018, his team finished third.
A EuroLeague championship for FC Barcelona would be the first title for Davies since he won back-to-back high school championships at Provo High as a sophomore and a junior before joining the BYU program in 2009.
“All I can think about is winning it,” Davies told Eurohoops.net’s Alex Molina last week. “I haven’t thought of what’s gonna happen or what I’m going to do. Until I’m a champion I can’t think of anything else.”
Davies shines in EuroLeague quarterfinals
Davies helped FC Barcelona, which had the league’s top record during the regular season, advance to the Final Four by leading the team through a tough five-game quarterfinal series against Zenit St. Petersburg. During the series, Davies averaged 14.8 points and 6.8 rebounds. That included back-to-back games with 22 points and eight rebounds in Games 2 and 3, both FC Barcelona wins after Zenit St. Petersburg won Game 1.
In Game 2, Davies hit 12 of 13 free throws and went 5 of 8 from the field as FC Barcelona won 81-78. In Game 3, he shot 7 of 12 from 2-point range and hit a pair of 3-pointers while adding two assists and a steal in a 78-70 victory.
“Being hit in the mouth like that is something that I think is gonna help us get to where we need to get,” Davies said during an appearance on the podcast The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas. “Our coaches, they tried to prepare us for this type of battle, and at the time we weren’t ready. We learned a lot about ourselves from that series, individually and as a team.”
Next up: The Final Four and Olimpia Milan
FC Barcelona went 2-0 against its Final Four semifinal opponent, Olimpia Milan, during the regular season, winning both games by 16 points. Davies averaged 14.5 points and 4.5 rebounds in those two games.
Davies told Molina that Olimpia Milan, which finished the regular season fourth in the EuroLeague standings, is “a really good team, especially because they are not the same team they were during the regular season. They are better than they were at the start of the year and they continue to get better game in and game out.”
Davies will also have his experience playing in the EuroLeague three years ago to lean back on as he tries to help FC Barcelona earn its third EuroLeague championship.
“My time in Zalgiris was unforgettable and definitely something special, especially with everything we went through to get to the Final Four, having to win all those games just to qualify … things like that were something special,” Davies told Molina. “We took a different route here in Barcelona but it’s always just as hard to get to these situations like the Final Four. They are both special but different.”
Utah ties in the Final Four
In addition to Davies, there are four other players who have ties back to Utah in this year’s EuroLeague Final Four.
- Former Utah forward Will Clyburn is in his fourth season with CSKA Moscow. Like Davies, Clyburn was named All-EuroLeague second team this season. He won a EuroLeague title with CSKA Moscow and was named the Final Four MVP that season.
- Former Weber State and Utah Jazz big man Joel Bolomboy is also on CSKA Moscow. He’s been with the team since 2018.
- Two other former Jazz players are on the other two Final Four teams: Tibor Pleiss is with Anadolu Efes, while Jeremy Evans plays for Olimpia Milano.