SPORTS 0

Tip-off time for Turkish cup

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News | 10/5/2011 12:00:00 AM |

Turkey’s domestic basketball campaign will start Thursday with Spor Toto Turkish Cup games.

Turkey’s domestic basketball campaign will start Thursday with Spor Toto Turkish Cup games.

Sixteen teams will start the group stages of the competition, where they will form four pools. On Thursday, Pool B and D matches will start the tournament.

Fenerbahçe Ülker will start its title defense against Mersin BB in a match played at the Cemal Gürsel Sports Hall in the eastern province of Erzurum. TOFAŞ will meet Olin Edirne in the other Pool B match of the day.

Pool D games will be played in the Black Sea province of Samsun. Galatasaray will take on Antalya BB, while Erdemir will meet Bandırma at the Yaşar Doğu Sports Hall.

The game will mean Galatasaray’s return to domestic competition only four days after winning a berth in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague, the top-level club competition on the continent.

The group matches in those two pools will be wrapped up in the next three days, before the other two pools start in Eskişehir and İzmir on Sunday.

Banvit, Beşiktaş, Hacettepe and Trabzonspor are placed in the Pool A, whose matches will be played in the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir.

Aliağa Petkim, Anadolu Efes, Pınar Karşıyaka and Türk Telekom are in Pool C, which looks to be the most difficult. The top two of each group will be in the Final Eight in February.