Baltic Basketball League (BBL) is a Baltic states basketball league founded in 2004.
Currently, the league is divided into two: the Elite division and the Challenge Cup division. The 10 strongest Baltic basketball clubs participate in the Elite division. The rest of the teams compete in the Challenge Cup. The winner of the Challenge Cup is promoted to the Elite division and the last team of the Elite division is relegated to the Challenge Cup. The Challenge Cup runner-up challenges the 9th place club of the Elite division in two matches for a place in the Elite division.
Before the regular season starts, there is a Presidents Cup. The participants are the Lithuanian champion, Latvian champion, Estonian champion, and one finalist from last seasons SEB BBL final.
For the 2012–13 season, the format of the BBL changes in a regular season composed by three groups of seven teams. Later, the format is similar as Eurocup with a Top 16 and a knockout stage with double legged series. Žalgiris, Lietuvos Rytas and VEF Rīga will not play this league. Also Neptūnas withdrew of this competition.
Read more about Baltic Basketball League: 2012–13 Teams, Elite Division Champions, Challenge Cup Champions, BBL Cup Champions
Famous quotes containing the words basketball and/or league:
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)