RETAbet Bilbao Basket comes off an up-and-down season. Things did not go well for Bilbao in the 7DAYS EuroCup, where it lost three of its first four games and ended up being eliminated via tiebreaker despite its 3-5 record. RETAbet got off to an extremely good start in the Spanish League regular season and won its four opening games. The team missed the Spanish Copa del Rey by one win and did not make it to the Spanish League playoffs after finishing 10th overall with a 14-18 record. RETAbet returns to the 2017-18 7DAYS EuroCup with a wild card in what will be its seventh season in the competition in 10 years. That is enough to consider RETAbet as a classic EuroCup club.

EuroLeague

EuroCup

Bilbao Basket has a strong EuroCup record to live up to. RETAbet enters the season with an impressive 58-29 record in the competition; it has reached the semifinals three times and went all the way to the title game in 2013 before losing to Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar. Founded in 2000, Bilbao has marched along a road of success that started in the Spanish third division. The club moved up almost a division per year under Coach Txus Vidorreta and future All-EuroLeague center Tiago Splitter. In 2004, Bilbao aced the second-division playoffs to qualify for the top Spanish League and started to make noise soon after. By 2008, Bilbao had already made it to the Spanish League playoffs, the Spanish King's Cup semifinals and the Spanish SuperCup title game. Bilbao had a strong 2008-09 EuroCup season, its first in the competition; in which it it advanced to the semifinals before Khimki stopped its run. Bilbao returned to the semifinals the following season – in which Marko Banic was chosen as the 2009-10 EuroCup MVP, but lost at the hands of ALBA Berlin. Bilbao reached the Spanish League finals in 2011, qualified for the 2011-12 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and the Men in Black fought all the way to the playoffs before losing to mighty CSKA Moscow in a clash for a spot at the Final Four. Bilbao returned to the EuroCup to reach the 2013 championship game with Fotis Katsikaris earning EuroCup Coach of the Year honors. Bilbao stepped out in the Last 32 in the 2013-14 EuroCup season and just a year later, the club was fourth in the Spanish League regular season with a 20-14 record, but lost to Valencia Basket in a quarterfinals series that went down to the final seconds. Last season, Bilbao managed to reel off seven consecutive road wins in qualifying to the Last 32 and forcing a do-or-die game against Bandirma. Its only road loss in the entire EuroCup season prevented Bilbao from making it to the eighthfinals. Bilbao also missed the Spanish League playoffs due to a midcourt, buzzer-beating bank shot that gave CAI Zaragoza an important win at Bilbao Arena. Last year, RETAbet did not go past the EuroCup regular season, but now will be more motivated than ever to bounce back and live up to its tradition in the competition.