{"id":475960,"date":"2026-02-18T14:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/475960\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:17:07","slug":"fiba-euroleague-women-play-ins-begin-with-fenerbahce-as-the-favorites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/475960\/","title":{"rendered":"FIBA: EuroLeague Women play-ins begin with Fenerbah\u00e7e as the favorites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The 2026 EuroLeague Women postseason has officially begun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Things will tip-off this Wednesday, Feb. 18 with the league \u201cplay-ins,\u201d in which the top eight finishers from group play will play best-of-three series to determine who moves on to the Final Six, a bracket-style playoff that will be held in April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The play-ins are divided into two types: the semifinal play-ins and the quarterfinal play-ins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Each club competing in the semifinal play-ins has already qualified for the Final Six; the winners of those series will advance directly to the second round. The losers of the semifinal play-ins will play the winners of the quarterfinal play-ins in the first round of the Final Six. The losers of the quarterfinal play-ins, meanwhile, will be eliminated from the competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">It goes without saying that the EuroLeague Women play-ins feature the best talent the competition has to offer, but what makes them particularly exciting is that they feature completely fresh matchups. The benefit of the league\u2019s two-pronged group phase is that come play-in time, none of the competing teams will have faced each other. Less predictability means more uncertainty and, ultimately, more excitement for fans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Will Fenerbah\u00e7e Opet continue its dominant run against an upstart Spar Girona squad? Can ZVVZ USK Praha advance past the quarterfinal play-ins and defend their EuroLeague Women title? How about Galatasaray \u00c7a\u011fda\u015f Faktoring? Will they take yet another step in restoring their previous glories?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">All of these questions and more will be answered when the play-ins begin, and you\u2019ll be able to watch all the action live and for free on FIBA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@EuroLeagueWomen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">EuroLeague Women YouTube channel<\/a>. Without further ado, here are this season\u2019s play-in matchups:<\/p>\n<p>Spar Girona (8-4) vs. Fenerbah\u00e7e Opet (11-1) (semifinal play-in)<\/p>\n<p>Casademont Zaragoza (7-5) vs. ZVVZ USK Praha (8-4) (quarterfinal play-in)<\/p>\n<p>Beretta Famila Schio (7-5) vs. Umana Reyer Venezia (7-5) (quarterfinal play-in)<\/p>\n<p>Basket Landes (8-4) vs. Galatasaray \u00c7a\u011fda\u015f Faktoring (10-2) (semifinal play-in)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 EuroLeague Women postseason has officially begun. Things will tip-off this Wednesday, Feb. 18 with the league&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[87413,99,434,119558],"class_list":{"0":"post-475960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-fiba-world","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-wnba","11":"tag-wnba-players-overseas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}