FIBA European Champions Cup and EuroLeague history

Then FIBA Secretary General William Jones, set up a commission consisting of Borislav Stanković (Yugoslavia), Raimundo Saporta (Spain), Robert Busnel (France), Miloslav Kříž (Czechoslovakia), and Nikolai Semashko (Soviet Union), to come up with a proposal.

The 2.18 m (7'2") tall Soviet player Jānis Krūmiņš, was the man in the middle for Rīgas ASK's initial league three-peat championship, as he was an unmatched dominant force around the basket.

The main Western European basketball club, Real Madrid, started to show signs of ambition, and was eliminated only after the semifinals, by Rīgas ASK.

However, that same season, the USSR Premier League champions did not participate, because the senior Soviet Union national team (made up of 90% of the players from CSKA) was preparing for the 1964 Summer Olympic Games.

At that time, Varese was led in part by the legendary center, Dino Meneghin, whom was surrounded by other players such as, one of the best scorers in Italian League history, Bob Morse, the Mexican shooter Manuel Raga, Ottorino Flaborea, John Fultz, Ivan Bisson, etc.

In the 1973–74 season final, Ignis Varese, after almost securing the win, was upset by Real Madrid, on an unbelievable late surge, led by Wayne Brabender and Carmelo Cabrera.

In 1976–77 season's final, the Israeli Super League champions Maccabi Tel Aviv, whose leaders Jim Boatwright and Miki Berkovich, combined for 43 points against Mobilgirgi Varese, won the first of their six European-wide crowns, which was a big surprise to the world of European club basketball.

Bosna Sarajevo, led by a young head coach (32 years old) named Bogdan Tanjević, beat Emerson Varese, in the final at Grenoble, France.

Italy's top league managed to generate three different European club champions (Cantù, Virtus Roma, and Olimpia Milano) in only seven years.

The former Varese star, Dino Meneghin, who had since joined Olimpia Milano, had imported his winning tradition to the Capital of Lombardy, to play in his eleventh European Final in 1983.

Danilović was named the EuroLeague Final Four MVP, but it was Djordjević's last second, coast-to-coast three-pointer, which lifted Partizan to a 71–70 victory against the Spanish club Montigalà Joventut Badalona.

That time, it was the Spanish League club's turn to stage a late rally, which came against an Olympiacos Piraeus team with the regular season's best record.

Arvydas Sabonis, led Real Madrid to victory over Olympiacos Piraeus in the final, and he won the only major European club honor that had eluded him up to that point, before going on to play in the NBA.

The Greek Basket League club Panathinaikos Athens, pulled off the coup of the offseason, by signing former NBA star Dominique Wilkins, but it was the Croatian center Stojko Vranković, who decided the outcome of that season's EuroLeague Final Four.

Vranković, a 2.18 m (7'2") tall center, ran the length of the court, to block FC Barcelona's Jose Antonio Montero's lay-up attempt, in the last second, to seal the finals win for Panathinaikos Athens.