The East Asia Super League has released its 2023-24 season schedule. Opening night is Wednesday, October 11, with the B.League's Chiba Jets playing host to TNT Tropang Giga at Funabashi Arena in the first game.
The Jets and Filipino club TNT are among four Group A teams for the tournament's group stage, which continues until January 2024.
In the schedule released on September 15, the Ryukyu Golden Kings, the reigning B.League champions, were assigned to Group B. Coach Dai Oketani's Kings face the Seoul SK Knights in the teams' opener on October 18 at Okinawa Arena, which hosted 10 days of FIBA Basketball World Cup matches from August 25-September 3.
The current EASL campaign features the champion and runner-up squads from the 2022-23 season from three countries' leagues in the region. They are the B.League (the Jets finished second), the Korean Basketball League (the Anyang JungKwanJang Red Boosters and Knights were first and second, respectively) and Taiwan's P. League+ (the Taipei Fubon Braves and New Taipei Kings were champions and runners-up). Also in the mix are top clubs from the 2023 Philippine Basketball Association's Governors' Cup: TNT and the Meralco Bolts.
Anyang, Taipei, Chiba and TNT are the Group A squads.
Group B is comprised of Seoul, New Taipei, Ryukyu and Meralco.
Each team will have a home-and-away series with the three clubs in their group between October and late January, adding up to six total contests per team in the group stage.
For instance, Taipei plays host to Chiba on October 18 in the Jets' first away game of the EASL season. Then, on December 27, the Jets meet the Braves at Funabashi Arena.
Additional East Asia Super League Schedule Info
Here's the rest of the Jets' Group A schedule:
- TNT vs Chiba (November 1)
- Anyang vs Chiba (December 13)
Here’s the rest of the Golden Kings’ Group B schedule:
- Seoul vs Ryukyu (November 1)
- Ryukyu vs Meralco (November 15)
- Meralco vs Ryukyu (December 13)
- New Taipei vs Ryukyu (January 10)
- Ryukyu vs New Taipei (January 24)
On March 8, 2024, Group A's first-place finisher and Group B's runner-up will meet in one semifinal and Group B's top finisher and Group A's second-place finisher will meet in the other at a TBD venue.
The EASL's final and third-place match are on March 10.
In the EASL's inaugural season, Okinawa Arena and Nikkan Arena Tochigi in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, cohosted the eight-team tournament in March 2023. Dubbed EASL Champions Week, it replaced a planned home-and-away format to determine which teams would advance to the Final Four. COVID-19 travel restrictions in 2022 and early 2023 forced EASL officials to revise the schedule.
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Author: Ed Odeven
Find Ed on JAPAN Forward's dedicated website, SportsLook. Follow his [Japan Sports Notebook] on Sundays, [Odds and Evens] during the week, and on X (formerly Twitter) ＠ed_odeven.
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