The 1965–66 FIBA European Champions Cup was the ninth season of the European top-tier level professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

club competition FIBA European Champions Cup (now called EuroLeague). It was won by

Simmenthal Milano Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano, commonly known as Olimpia Milano or as EA7 Emporio Armani Milan after its title sponsor, is an LBA Italian professional basketball team, based in Milan, Italy. Its colors are white and red, and the team is sometimes ...

, for the first time in its history, the first of the club's three EuroLeague championships. Simmenthal defeated

Slavia VŠ Praha USK Praha, ( cs, Univerzitní Sportovní Klub Praha, University Sports Club Prague), formerly known as Slavia VŠ Praha ( cs, Slavia Vysoké Školy Praha), is a Czech professional basketball club that was founded in 1953 in the city of Prague. ...

, by a score of 77–72, in the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

of the first ever Champions Cup Final Four held in the EuroLeague competition, with two venues used: a venue in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, and the Palazzo dello sport arena in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

.Champions Cup 1965–66
/ref> The Italian team, featuring future the Basketball Hall of Fame member

Bill Bradley William Warren Bradley (born July 28, 1943) is an American politician and former professional basketball player. He served three terms as a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey (1979–1997). He ran for the Democratic Party's nomination f ...

, defeated the favorites and former champs,

CSKA Moscow CSKA Moscow (russian: ЦСКА Москва) is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. It was created in 1911 in the Russian Empire on base of OLLS (Skiing Society, founded 1901). Later, during the Soviet Union, Soviet era, it was a central piece ...

, in the semifinal, by a score of 57–68.

Competition system

26 teams. European national domestic league champions, plus the then current FIBA European Champions Cup title holders only, playing in a tournament system. The competition culminated in a Final Four.

First round

*Series decided over a third game after having tied aggregate score after the two home-away games.

Second round

*Series decided over a third game after having tied aggregate score after the two home-away games.

Quarterfinals group stage

For the first time in the competition history, the quarterfinals were played with a round-robin system, in which every Two Game series (TGS) constituted as one game for the record. A third decisive game was played if the aggregate score of the first two games was tied.

Standings

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Group B

Games

Standings

Final four

Semifinals

March 31,

March 30, Palazzo dello sport,

3rd place game

April 1,

Final

April 1, Palazzo dello sport,

Final standings

Awards

FIBA European Champions Cup Finals Top Scorer

* Jiří Zídek Sr. (

)

References

External links

1965–66 FIBA European Champions Cup

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiba European Champions Cup 1965-66 1965-66

FIBA The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. Originally known as the (hence FIBA), in 1989 it dropped the word ''amateur'' from its na ...