Club profile: Frutti Extra Bursaspor

Up-and-coming Turkish club Frutti Extra Bursaspor will be competing in the 7DAYS EuroCup for the second consecutive season.

Up-and-coming Turkish club Frutti Extra Bursaspor will be competing in the 7DAYS EuroCup for the second consecutive season. In its debut, the team started with six defeats in a row before finishing the regular season on a high note, winning three of its last four games under newly arrived Coach Dusan Alimpijevic. Now, Bursaspor will return eager to make that debut experience pay off in its second EuroCup campaign.

Frutti Extra Bursaspor was founded in 2014 and started in the Turkish third division, where it placed second in the final stage and earned a jump to the second division. From there, Bursaspor brought in Dejan Borovnjak, who had 62 games of EuroLeague experience and 46 contests in the EuroCup; and Karlo Vragovic, who was a Croatian youth international and played for Cibona Zagreb in the EuroLeague. The Balkan duo carried the team to third place in the 2016-17 season. Borovnjak and Vragovic helped the team reach the second division semifinals the next season and then win the title at that level in 2018-19 to earn promotion to the Turkish top flight. Bursaspor made a strong Turkish League debut, starting 3-1 on the way to an 11-12 record for ninth place when the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the remainder of the season.

In the EuroCup last season, Bursaspor did not notch its first international victory until overtime of a late-season visit to Nanterre of France. Then it waited until the final game of the regular season to give its fans a home win and finish 3-7 on what was an upward swing by the time the team bowed out of the competition.

With one season of European experience under its belt, Bursaspor will be ready to show it belongs at this level and will look, first of all, to improve on the results from its debut campaign. Reaching the single-game elimination rounds could be Bursaspor's reward for its perseverance as it takes the EuroCup head-on.