Preview: EuroLeague Women Final Four kicks off Friday with plenty of WNBA star power

The EuroLeague Women Final Four is finally here! Europe’s top women’s professional basketball title will be decided this weekend in Sopron, Hungary, with four teams looking to bring home the title!

What is the format of EuroLeague Women?

Unlike EuroCup Women’s semifinals and finals rounds, EuroLeague Women’s Final Four is a single-elimination tournament. The winners in the semifinals will play for the championship while the losers will play for third place.

What’s at stake?

Besides the continental title, the EuroLeague Women Final Four champions get an automatic berth in the group stage of EuroLeague Women for the 2019-20 season. Winning this berth now in EuroLeague Women can make things a little easier if teams get upset in the playoffs in domestic competition, which would make it hard for them to win a spot that way. If the EuroLeague Women champion also wins the domestic league, one more team from the winner’s domestic league is allowed into the group stage.

How can I watch?

All EuroLeague Women Final Four Games can be streamed for free on FIBA’s YouTube channel.

USK Praha (Czech Republic) vs. Dynamo Kursk (Russia)

• When: Friday, April 12, at 11 a.m. ET
• Where are these teams in their domestic leagues? USK Praha, first in the Czech ZBL with a 20-0 record, will play Zabiny Brno in the ZBL Finals starting April 17. Dynamo Kursk is tied for first place in the Russian PBL with a 17-1 record. They will play the PBL Finals against UMMC Ekaterinburg starting April 20.
• Notable WNBA Players: For USK Praha, their WNBA players are Alyssa Thomas (Sun), Isabelle Harrison (Aces) and Leticia Romero (Wings). For Dynamo Kursk, Epiphanny Prince (Liberty), Breanna Stewart (Storm) and Natasha Howard (Storm) are on the roster.
• Notes: Dynamo Kursk comes into this competition looking for its second EuroLeague Women title since 2016-17. Breanna Stewart gives the team a great chance to win it again because she is the competition’s leading scorer, at 20.9 points per game. Though she is putting up big numbers, Stewart is also playing nearly 36 minutes per game since this team doesn’t have the depth that rival UMMC Ekaterinburg has. Still, Dynamo Kursk is the favorite against USK Praha, where Thomas is the top player, averaging 17.4 points, 10.3 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game. If Dynamo Kursk wins the EuroLeague Women title, expect Stewart to win the Final Four MVP. It will cap off an excellent year where she also won the 2018 WNBA MVP, Finals MVP, FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup MVP and the FIBA EuroLeague Women regular season MVP awards — since last August!

UMMC Ekaterinburg (Russia) vs. Basket Sopron (Hungary)

• When: Friday, April 12, at 2 p.m. ET
• Where are these teams in their domestic leagues? Sopron finished first in the Hungarian A Division with a 22-0 record and is in the semifinals of its domestic league’s playoffs. UMMC tied for first place in the Russian PBL and plays Dynamo Kursk in the PBL Finals.
• Notable WNBA Players: UMMC has Kayla McBride (Aces), Courtney Vandersloot (Sky), Brittney Griner (Mercury), Maria Vadeeva (Sparks) and Emma Meesseman (Mystics). Sopron has WNBA players Amanda Zahui B. (Liberty), Yvonne Turner (Mercury) and Candice Dupree (Fever).
• Notes: This is a rematch of the 2017-18 EuroLeague Women championship game, which culminated in a UMMC title and Emma Meesseman winning the Final Four MVP award. Meesseman is averaging 11.3 points and 6 rebounds per game in EuroLeague Women play. This may sound low at first glance, but with a roster as deep as UMMC’s, she doesn’t have to play as much as Stewart will for Kursk — at least, until do-or-die games like the Final Four. Expect the Mystics star to put up big numbers again and lead UMMC to the championship game where they would likely play against Dynamo Kursk.