Draw explained: BCL Seedings revealed for Qualification Rounds, Regular Season

The Official Draw Ceremony for the seventh season of the Basketball Champions League will take place on Thursday, July 7 at the Patrick Baumann House of Basketball in Mies, Switzerland. The draw will start with the Qualification Rounds, followed immediately with the Regular Season groups.

Former winners and team captains of previous champions will be on hand in Switzerland to help out with the draw, which will be streamed live on the Basketball Champions League website and its YouTube channel from 11:00 CET.

The 2022-23 Basketball Champions League competition will consist of thirty-two (32 teams). Twenty-eight (28) teams are directly qualified for the Regular Season, with the last four (4) teams set to qualify through four (4) Qualification Round tournaments.

For both the Qualification Rounds and the Regular Season Draws, teams have been placed into pots, based firstly on the BCL Club Ranking and, for clubs that have not yet participated in the competition, on the BCL Country Ranking.

The 2022-23 BCL season will start on September 21 with the Qualification Rounds.

The twenty-four (24) teams will compete in four (4) Qualification Round tournaments, and will be split into six pots (seeded and unseeded) for the purpose of the draw, based on the above mentioned BCL Club Ranking and, when no Club Ranking is available, on the BCL Country Ranking.

The country protection principle does not apply for the Qualification Rounds. Teams from the same country can face each other during this stage.

Teams from Pots 1 and 2 are seeded and will enter their respective tournament directly in the Semi-Final stage. 

Teams from Pot 6 will be drawn against teams from Pot 3 and teams from Pot 5 against teams from Pot 4 until all Quarter-Finals are completed.

The eight (8) winners will qualify for the Semi-Finals and face the seeded teams from Pots 1 and 2. 

These eight winners will then face each other in four (4) final pairings with the winners joining the twenty-eight (28) directly qualified teams in the Regular Season.

Twenty-eight (28) clubs have qualified directly for the 2022–23 Basketball Champions League Regular Season. They will be joined by the four (4) winners of the Qualification Rounds. The Regular Season will tip off on October 4.  

For the purpose of the Draw, the twenty-eight (28) directly qualified teams and the four (4) teams coming from the Qualification Rounds will be divided into four (4) pots of eight (8) teams each. The pots are based on the above mentioned BCL Club and Country Rankings.

* Following official communication from the French Basketball Federation and in accordance with the BCL Board decision on Thursday, June 23, Pau-Lacq-Orthez will not participate in the Basketball Champions League. SIG Strasbourg will therefore join JDA Bourgogne Dijon and Limoges CSP as the third LNB club in the Regular Season. In this event, TFT Skopje (MKD) will participate in the Qualification Rounds.

There will be no additional draw for the Play-In series and the Round of 16. Play-In pairings will be set up by neighboring groups (A2 v B3, B2 v A3; C2 v D3, D2 v C3; E2 v F3, F2 v E3; G2 v H3, H2 v G3), and the winners of each pairing will go into their predetermined Round of 16 group:

Draw restrictions:

Country protection applies for the Regular Season stage of the Draw: clubs cannot be drawn in groups with other clubs from the same country.  

The Draw for the 2022-23 Basketball Champions League Regular Season will be completed once all teams have been drawn. The Regular Season will tip off on October 4.

The Official Draw Ceremony will be streamed live on www.championsleague.basketball, on Thursday, July 7, from 11:00 CET.